The Sound of Music

Choreographer: Wendy Moore

The Sound of music has to be considered one of the contenders for ‘best loved’ musical, with its faithful followers quick to let their grievances be known if they felt they were being short changed in any production. As one of several versions popping up all over the district recently,’ Toads’ production obviously sated audience appetite, confirmed by the very vocal ‘aahs’ and various other murmurings of approval heard throughout the show. Visually, the ‘pristine appearance’ stage set provided a perfect backdrop to appealing staging, especially glorified in the wedding scene. However, using the auditorium at various times for entrances and exits, may in theory work well for visual excellence and viewing from the stalls, but the rest of us further back than the first row of the circle, could only guess at the delights that were materialising out of our eye line. Costumes looked elegant and were fitted and worn well for the best part but the varying lengths of the Nun’s habits looked untidy, all would normally be ankle length! Cast performed vocally with varying degrees of success. The opening Nun’s chorus, ‘Dixit Dominus’ was balanced and sung with precision although the finale ‘Climb every Mountain’ started weakly, strength developing with its progression, but unfortunately the sentiment of the moment had already been lost. There was no doubt of the beautiful sounds radiating from the stage but a ‘no nonsense’ approach from the Musical Director scuppered any chances there may have been to develop the full potential of light and shade, leaving a tendency to sound harsh and abrupt in places. This was a shame as it meant we also lost that necessary sense of serenity during the majority of the chorus numbers. Mother Abbess however was able to redeem her ‘superfluity’ of nun’s minor imperfections with a powerful, well received ‘Climb every Mountain’, exactly as it should be. Maria pulled out all the stops, performing with just the right amount of exuberance and sensitivity, portraying the role to perfection, her natural aptitude for the part enabled believable relationships to be generated, especially with the children. Captain Von Trapp could not quite emulate his counterpart, (to be fair, a huge undertaking) but gave a solid performance as did an extremely dapper Max and an unusually amiable but workable Elsa. I know it’s an old cliché but I really AM saving the best till last. The young ones were FAB-U-LOUS, such a talented bunch with some of the best voices in the show and oodles of potential to go far. These young actors and actresses took team work to another level! How lovely to see a happy, smiley, satisfied audience, keep them coming!

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