West End Review: First Preview Night Connie Fisher in The Sound of Music

The hills are alive with the sound of Connie!

Last night was the first Preview night of the hotly anticipated “new” musical “The Sound of Music”. If you’re not aware of this latest addition to the West End, you clearly weren’t one of the 8 million who watched BBC’s “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?” and saw Connie Fisher win the coveted role of Maria Von Trapp.

Having been an avid viewer of the television show, I found myself really wanting Connie to prove the critics wrong and to show us all what she can do. Inevitably theatre-goers are going to go in with a preconceived idea of how successful Miss Fisher will be in the role, but beyond the initial “Ooh, there’s Connie” I forgot all about it and was totally absorbed in a wonderful show with performances that made me laugh, cry and want to give little Gretel a huge cuddle!

The beginning is highly atmospheric, “Preludium”, sung in virtual darkness (save for a few candle lights) by the nuns at the abbey, was stunning. Admittedly, after such an emotive impact, seeing Maria on her hill wasn’t quite as special as it could have been. However, Connie can certainly hold a tune, and performed her opening number of “Sound of Music” brilliantly – one can only imagine the nerves she must have had but totally concealed.

Indeed the tone was set for a largely fantastic show. The female performances were awesome. If you want to hear one person song “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” it would have to be Lesley Garrett: and what a voice she has!! Similarly, the Von Trapp Children were brilliant – a group of scarily talented youngsters! This pundit’s favourite scenes were the ones where Maria was singing with the children (“Lonely Goatherd” and “My Favourite Things”) as they worked so well together. Sophie Bould was the innocent, endearing Liesel that girls can all identify with, but she was rather unfortunately let down by her opposite number, Neil McDermott, as Rolf. His role was not pitched at the right level and perhaps should have been played in a more naïve and under-confident manner.

Georg Von Trapp, played by Simon Shepherd, was also under-whelming. He looked awkward at points on stage and did not really convince either as the virtually dictatorial captain, or the man slowly falling in love. One truly wasted moment was the “Landler” – where Maria and the Captain are dancing together at the party. No real or believable connection was made between the two, but that would have to be put down to the direction rather than the actors themselves.

The scenery was astonishing, if a little over-complicated at times. The interior of the house was very reminiscent of the set in the film with the elgegant sweeping staircase – Simon Shepherd did try to get out of the wrong doors at one point!! I was also impressed with the choreography – arrangements for “So Long Farewell” and “Do-Re-Mi” were brilliantly executed by Maria and the children.

The Sound of Music was always going to be a success; there is no way that such an enduring musical is not going to be well received. However, with all the publicity generated over the past few months and with Lord Lloyd-Webber’s name attached to it, there must have been tremendous pressure to get it right. Its not a flawless production (it is still in its preview stage), however, it was fantastic and I was most definitely wowed by Connie.

They certainly solved the “problem” of Maria!

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