Sofia,
09.01.2024 23:51 | (BTA)
The first performance of "The Sound of Music" was sent off with long applause and shouts of "Bravo" from the audience. The 3-hour Broadway musical premiered tonight at the Sofia Opera and Ballet.
This is another title that director West Hyler is staging in our country – after "Avenue Q" and "Sponge Bob" at the Puppet Theatre, "Shrek" – at the Sofia Opera, "Book of Dreams" – at the National Palace of Culture.
"The Sound of Music" is set to music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the book of the same name by Howard Lindsay and Russell Krauss.
THE PLOT
The plot is based on Maria von Trapp's 1949 memoir, "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers". Set in Austria on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess in a large family while deciding whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children and their widowed father, Captain von Trapp. He is ordered to accept service in the German navy, but he resists the Nazis. He and Maria decide to flee Austria with the children.
Many of the songs on "The Sound of Music" have become standards, including Do-re-mi, My Favorite Things, Edelweiss, Climb Ev'ry Mountain, and the eponymous title track, The Sound of Music.
THE PERFORMERS
Vesela Delcheva is in the role of Maria, who will make Captain von Trapp's children sing, and the little naughty ones are from Dimitar Kostantsaliev's Talasamche hildren's formation. Aleksandar Georgiev is engaged for the role of Captain von Trapp. Nuns, an abbess, baronesses, a baron, an admiral, a postman and other characters from the time before the Second World War are among the actors.
Aleksandrina Stoyanova-Andreeva, Silvana Pravcheva, Mariana Zvetkova, Diana Dimitrova, Rada Toteva, Tsveta Sarambelieva, Nikolay Pavlov, Nikolay Voynov, Anton Radev, Plamen Granzhan are in the other main roles.
WEST HYLER: I WANTED TO TELL A MUSIC DRAMA REALISTICALLY AND HONESTLY
I'm so happy to be working on "The Sound of Music". The production is very meaningful to me. The film was one of my mother's favorite movies and I remember very clearly as a child her showing me this film and crying at the performances. They meant so much to her. She sang the songs "Edelweiss" and "Do-re-mi" to me over and over again. That performance has been a part of my life since I was very young.
But I'm not doing the movie "The Sound of Music" here, I'm doing the Broadway musical "The Sound of Music", which I don't think any of the audience has seen before.
My idea and concept is to tell a musical drama realistically and honestly. The production is very beautiful, very strong and very real. The basis is the true story of Maria and the von Trapp family. They actually went through these experiences. She was a novice. He was an aristocrat and gave up everything to marry her. They formed a group of singers and when the Nazis invaded Austria, they had to flee.
I want to tell this story as truthfully as possible so that when people see it, they're watching a new kind of musical. It's beautiful and there's comedy in it, there's laughter and love and joy, but it's a musical drama. It's a serious musical.
There are amazing actors here at the opera. We prepare scenes with very sincere dialogue, they are very real. The fact that they present these realistic situations and emotions is very, very powerful. There's a lot of what we call in America "getting a chill" when your whole body starts to shake because something so emotional is happening. I think that would be a real revelation.
WHITNEY LOCHER, COSTUME DESIGNER: THERE ARE OVER 90 COSTUMES IN THIS SPECTACLE
I am very excited to be here again. When I start something new, I do thorough research. For this production, the action is set in 1938. I look at photographs from the past, illustrations, anything that helps me understand the details of clothing from that period. Then I draw, do all the sketches for the costumes, and then the director approves them and they are sent to the costume workshops.
The costume designers here do a great job. We're doing tryouts with the actors. There are over 90 costumes in this spectacle because the Von Trapp kids have many, many costumes.
I will admit that the movie of the same name influenced me somewhat because you really can't escape the movie, everybody knows it, and I love that movie. Everybody loves that movie. I'm very excited for the audience to see this production and see the beautiful costumes and the wonderful work that the team and I put into it.
JEREMY BARNETT, SET DESIGNER: THE WHOLE SPECTACLE IS PERFORMED IN THE DIFFERENT FACES OF ONE SET
"The first time I worked on "The Sound of Music" was twenty years ago in a small theatre in the US near Boston, where I grew up.
The film "The Sound of Music" has the same story, but it's a little different because in the film you can go to Salzburg, you can follow the kids into the city, you can follow them into nature.
In the theatre, we have to be a little more economical in terms of where the action takes place. This particular play is written for a traditional style of theatre. The way that we achieved that is that the whole spectacle is performed in the different faces of a set. It's simple, more minimalist.
This is my first time working with West Hyler, who is wonderfully creative. He's so inventive that when we were talking about how to put on this traditional American musical with a modern sensibility, he had great ideas about how to make the play more modern, more contemporary.
I think it will be wonderful. It's such a beautiful musical, such beautiful music and such a beautiful story. It's going to be exciting and it's going to be wonderful for the audience here. Taking care of the audience is the first thing a successful production needs. Even if you have all the ideas in the world and a great script, if you're not thinking "How can I make this beautiful for the audience, how can I make this an exciting and powerful experience?" and putting yourself in the audience's shoes, then you're in trouble because you're just making opera for yourself.
https://www.bta.bg/bg/news/bulgaria/598354--zvukat-na-muzikata-ot-broduey-oglasi-sofiyskata-opera