Mary Martin stars in R&H's last musical
Byron Kolln | the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood | 06/15/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"A British loophole classifying music recordings over 50 years old as "public domain" has unleashed a glut of cheap CD reissues of classic musical soundtracks and cast recordings. While these releases don't produce profit for the original artists or composer's estates, they do offer collectors the chance to expand their music libraries for literally pocket change. Such is the case with this re-issue of the SOUND OF MUSIC original Broadway cast album.
The final musical from the teaming of Rodgers and Hammerstein, THE SOUND OF MUSIC first opened on Broadway in 1959, starring Mary Martin as the unruly postulant who is assigned the task of becoming governess to the seven children of widower Captain Von Trapp (played by Theodore Bikel).
Mary Martin imbues Maria with a childlike wonderment and maternal warmth; you can completely follow her character's journey through Maria's songs on the cast album. Cutting through any possible sugar within the piece are the two numbers shared by the Captain's worldly mistress, Elsa (Marion Marlowe) and her wisecracking friend Max (Kurt Kasznar), "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It", which are the closest that lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II ever came to approaching the cynical, rueful ballads made famous during Richard Rodgers' days with Lorenz Hart. The fact that those two songs never made it to the eventual movie version robbed the Baroness Elsa of much of her impact, and gave the film no real sense of mounting conflict within the Maria/Captain/Elsa love triangle.
Playing the Mother Abbess, Patricia Neway graces the album with her soaring "Climb Ev'ry Mountain"; Lauri Peters is the love-struck Liesel, and Brian Davies plays Rolf. THE SOUND OF MUSIC opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on the 16th November, 1959 (moving in 1962 to the Mark Hellinger Theatre) and eventually clocked up 1,443 performances before closing in 1963. Mary Martin's various replacements throughout the run included Jeannie Carson, Nancy Dussault, Martha Wright and Barbara Meister."
Track Listings (17) - Disc #1