Assessment: The Sound of Music proper at house on little Rosebud stage

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For nearly 65 years, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s musical The Sound of Music has labored its magic to enthrall and entertain, and Rosebud’s model that runs till Sept. 2 is a licensed crowd pleaser.

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Rodgers and Hammerstein co-wrote 9 of Broadway’s most enduring musicals together with South Pacific, The King and I, Oklahoma!, Carousel and Cinderella. The Sound of Music was their final collaboration as a result of Hammerstein died shortly after it premiered on Broadway in 1959. It has remained their hottest, that includes because it does such iconic tunes as Climb Each Mountain, My Favourite Issues, Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi, Sixteen Occurring Seventeen, and its signature tune, The Sound of Music.

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Set in 1938 with the looming rise of Nazi Germany, it’s the story of Maria Rainer (Cassia Schmidt), a rambunctious postulate on the Nonberg Abbey in Salzburg, who is distributed to be the governess of the seven kids of Georg von Trapp (Ian Farthing), a stern, rich, widowed naval captain.

Maria will not be all that a lot older than Liesl (Lacey Cornelsen), his oldest little one at 17.  In true romantic comedy vogue, Maria and Georg disagree on every little thing from the best way he treats his kids and servants to his disdain for singing, dancing and frivolity typically, however they’re destined to fall in love.

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Director Morris Ertman has realized the key of The Sound of Music’s success is its songs and the candy, easy story of second possibilities. Dishing out with lavish units, props and costumes, he has given it a surprisingly efficient minimalist staging. He has substituted a pair of grand pianos, helmed superbly by Terra Harper and Shauna Murphy, for an orchestra, and, for the tiny Rosebud Opera Home, it’s all that’s wanted. Richard Rodger’s music nonetheless sounds grand. Designer Hanne Loosen works true magic with a single, massive gossamer drape to sign the modifications in location from the Abbey, its grounds and the neighbouring hillside the place Maria spends her free time, to the rooms and grounds of Georg’s property.

Schmidt is luminous as Maria. She’s tiny in stature with a commanding voice that brings the proper mixture of youthful exuberance and budding authority. Her Maria could also be a wide-eyed optimist however she can also be a born trainer. She and Farthing convey a heartfelt conviction to their duet One thing Good, and she or he and the youngsters have nice enjoyable with Do-Re-Mi and The Lonely Goatherd.

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Cornelsen and Travis Edwards, as Liesl’s suitor Rolf, discover the humour in addition to the budding romance in Sixteen Occurring Seventeen, and Edwards makes a chilling transformation when Rolf joins the Nazi celebration.

Mike Thiessen gives constant comedian reduction as Max Detweiler, the household good friend who’s attempting to stability allegiances to each Austria and Germany whereas planning the yearly music pageant the place he hopes to characteristic the Von Trapp Household Singers.

Katelyn Morishita is a standout in her twin roles because the compassionate Mom Abbess and the no-nonsense housekeeper Frau Schmidt, and she or he makes the highly effective anthem Climb Each Mountain the present’s musical spotlight.

The Sound of Music is an enormous, old school Broadway present and, to the credit score of everybody concerned on stage and backstage, Rosebud’s The Sound of Music appears like an excellent match for this tiny theatre on this tiny Alberta hamlet. These prairie wheatfields surrounding Rosebud will likely be alive with the sound of music all summer time lengthy.

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