Post by Bozur on Mar 28, 2005 3:59:38 GMT -5
NYTimes.com > International > Europe
VIENNA JOURNAL
The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Remembrance
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: March 24, 2005
Stephan Trierenberg/Associated Press
Michael Kraus as Captain von Trapp, Sandra Pires as Maria and other actors as the children at a rehearsal of "The Sound of Music" in Vienna.
Michael Steiner/Reuters
The love-struck couple at the rehearsal. The musical's first major Austrian staging drew mixed reviews, but audiences have been cheering.
VIENNA, March 22 - "The most beautiful music is the song of the mountain." That is how the show's most memorable phrase is literally translated from German, but it doesn't have quite the pastoral sweep of the original: "The hills are alive with the sound of music."
But never mind. The first major production in Austria of "The Sound of Music," now playing in German translation at Vienna's venerable Volksoper, is otherwise entirely recognizable.
There is, for example, that moment near the end, clearly intended to remind Austrian audiences of the worst moment of their 20th-century past: a giant swastika rises up in the middle of the stage; no-nonsense German soldiers in olive-green combat helmets take up positions in the aisles; searchlights sweep the audience. Meanwhile, Capt. Georg von Trapp and Maria, governess-turned-wife, escape over misty mountains from Nazi-occupied Salzburg, leading their seven children to freedom.
Scenes like that from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical have, of course, been played the world over for decades. And there have been productions in Austria itself. But while it was played in a minor production in Innsbruck a few years ago and in a small satirical version in Vienna in 1993, it has never before been produced at a national theater in the country where the historical events that inspired the story took place.
For decades, theatrical producers and managers evidently believed that Austrians would not like to see the period when Hitler took over turned into light, frothy American-style musical comedy. "The Sound of Music" was seen in Austria a bit the way another Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, "The King and I" is still viewed in Thailand - a frivolous, cartoonish offense to national pride. Even the highly successful 1965 movie version, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, never got a theatrical release in this country.
"It was about time," Rudolph Berger, the manager of the Volksoper said when asked why he decided to stage "The Sound of Music" just now, "because it's a very good play."
In fact, the critical reception of the Volksoper's "The Sound of Music" has been mixed at best, but the audience response has been very welcoming. Mr. Berger said one critic had charged that there was not a single memorable melody in the whole production, "in contradiction to the views of about 50 million people," the theater manager said, no doubt thinking of songs like "Climb Every Mountain," which is so famous that many people do not even know that it originated in this musical.
The critic of Die Presse, one of Austria's serious national daily papers, called it a "boring two and a half hours." Another paper, Kurier, complained that one of the show's signature numbers, "Edelweiss," was "an insult to Austrian musical creation." That led some of the musical's defenders to wonder if the old resentment against the Rodgers and Hammerstein rendition of Austria in the troubled 1930's does not still generate resentment.
"I can't really prove it," Mr. Berger said, "but I think some of the reviews, which were not very positive, reacted to the fact of doing it rather than to what was on stage."
The musical got pretty terrible reviews in New York, too, when it opened on Broadway in 1959, but audiences ignored them. So have audiences in Vienna, who clearly side with Mr. Berger in appraising the show, loudly applauding and cheering the actors at the end. Every performance so far has been sold out, and the delighted Mr. Berger has added seven performances to the schedule, predicting that it will be this year's best attended Volksoper production.
"I liked it, but 20 years ago I wouldn't have," one member of the audience, Margot Schindler, a cultural anthropologist, said as she left the theater on Monday night. Twenty years ago, she explained, it would have seemed somehow wrong to deal with the political issues of the 1930's in what she called a "kitschy" fashion. Even now, she felt, the private relations in the Trapp family itself are presented in an idealized, saccharine way.
"Reality wasn't like that," she said, "but the political stuff is O.K."
Of course, "The Sound of Music" is far from a serious or probing examination of the politics of the 1930's, but it does echo of Austria's own often difficult, hesitant and ambiguous reckoning with its past. The conventional view of the matter here and abroad is that for decades Austrians wanted to think of themselves as victims of Nazi aggression, rather than eager collaborators.
The election two decades ago of Kurt Waldheim as president, even as his own record of Nazi collaboration was being globally discussed, seemed to many a reflection of a resistance to an honest look at Austria's morally ambiguous history.
The Americans Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had no such difficulty. The musical makes clear a certain vision of Austria. It is a country where, even as Captain von Trapp bravely refuses to collaborate, most of his friends willingly or at least resignedly, do so, capitulating to the Nazis out of cowardice or social snobbery or economic interest.
"When we deal with our past, there are always two groups in Austria," Helga Rabl-Stadler, the president of the Salzburg Festival, said in a telephone interview. "One group ignores it, doesn't want to know, and the other group wants to talk in a serious way about it."
Ms. Rabl-Stadler went to Vienna to see the production, and if her reaction is any indication, things may be changing.
"When I saw the musical, I thought this is not the main way to talk about the past," she said. "It's not the way I would teach it in the schools. But it is one way to tell young people: 'The time was like this. You could be a nice family, and suddenly you could be in misery and unhappiness because of politics.' "
Japanese tourists, she said, know "Edelweiss," many of them no doubt assuming, as Ronald Reagan did some years ago when the Austrian president was visiting, that it is the Austrian national anthem.
At the end of the show at the Volksoper on Monday night, the Viennese audience, many of whose members brought their small children, was invited to sing "Edelweiss" with the assembled actors on stage. It was clear from the response that few of them knew it.
VIENNA JOURNAL
The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Remembrance
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
Published: March 24, 2005
Stephan Trierenberg/Associated Press
Michael Kraus as Captain von Trapp, Sandra Pires as Maria and other actors as the children at a rehearsal of "The Sound of Music" in Vienna.
Michael Steiner/Reuters
The love-struck couple at the rehearsal. The musical's first major Austrian staging drew mixed reviews, but audiences have been cheering.
VIENNA, March 22 - "The most beautiful music is the song of the mountain." That is how the show's most memorable phrase is literally translated from German, but it doesn't have quite the pastoral sweep of the original: "The hills are alive with the sound of music."
But never mind. The first major production in Austria of "The Sound of Music," now playing in German translation at Vienna's venerable Volksoper, is otherwise entirely recognizable.
There is, for example, that moment near the end, clearly intended to remind Austrian audiences of the worst moment of their 20th-century past: a giant swastika rises up in the middle of the stage; no-nonsense German soldiers in olive-green combat helmets take up positions in the aisles; searchlights sweep the audience. Meanwhile, Capt. Georg von Trapp and Maria, governess-turned-wife, escape over misty mountains from Nazi-occupied Salzburg, leading their seven children to freedom.
Scenes like that from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical have, of course, been played the world over for decades. And there have been productions in Austria itself. But while it was played in a minor production in Innsbruck a few years ago and in a small satirical version in Vienna in 1993, it has never before been produced at a national theater in the country where the historical events that inspired the story took place.
For decades, theatrical producers and managers evidently believed that Austrians would not like to see the period when Hitler took over turned into light, frothy American-style musical comedy. "The Sound of Music" was seen in Austria a bit the way another Rodgers and Hammerstein hit, "The King and I" is still viewed in Thailand - a frivolous, cartoonish offense to national pride. Even the highly successful 1965 movie version, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, never got a theatrical release in this country.
"It was about time," Rudolph Berger, the manager of the Volksoper said when asked why he decided to stage "The Sound of Music" just now, "because it's a very good play."
In fact, the critical reception of the Volksoper's "The Sound of Music" has been mixed at best, but the audience response has been very welcoming. Mr. Berger said one critic had charged that there was not a single memorable melody in the whole production, "in contradiction to the views of about 50 million people," the theater manager said, no doubt thinking of songs like "Climb Every Mountain," which is so famous that many people do not even know that it originated in this musical.
The critic of Die Presse, one of Austria's serious national daily papers, called it a "boring two and a half hours." Another paper, Kurier, complained that one of the show's signature numbers, "Edelweiss," was "an insult to Austrian musical creation." That led some of the musical's defenders to wonder if the old resentment against the Rodgers and Hammerstein rendition of Austria in the troubled 1930's does not still generate resentment.
"I can't really prove it," Mr. Berger said, "but I think some of the reviews, which were not very positive, reacted to the fact of doing it rather than to what was on stage."
The musical got pretty terrible reviews in New York, too, when it opened on Broadway in 1959, but audiences ignored them. So have audiences in Vienna, who clearly side with Mr. Berger in appraising the show, loudly applauding and cheering the actors at the end. Every performance so far has been sold out, and the delighted Mr. Berger has added seven performances to the schedule, predicting that it will be this year's best attended Volksoper production.
"I liked it, but 20 years ago I wouldn't have," one member of the audience, Margot Schindler, a cultural anthropologist, said as she left the theater on Monday night. Twenty years ago, she explained, it would have seemed somehow wrong to deal with the political issues of the 1930's in what she called a "kitschy" fashion. Even now, she felt, the private relations in the Trapp family itself are presented in an idealized, saccharine way.
"Reality wasn't like that," she said, "but the political stuff is O.K."
Of course, "The Sound of Music" is far from a serious or probing examination of the politics of the 1930's, but it does echo of Austria's own often difficult, hesitant and ambiguous reckoning with its past. The conventional view of the matter here and abroad is that for decades Austrians wanted to think of themselves as victims of Nazi aggression, rather than eager collaborators.
The election two decades ago of Kurt Waldheim as president, even as his own record of Nazi collaboration was being globally discussed, seemed to many a reflection of a resistance to an honest look at Austria's morally ambiguous history.
The Americans Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein had no such difficulty. The musical makes clear a certain vision of Austria. It is a country where, even as Captain von Trapp bravely refuses to collaborate, most of his friends willingly or at least resignedly, do so, capitulating to the Nazis out of cowardice or social snobbery or economic interest.
"When we deal with our past, there are always two groups in Austria," Helga Rabl-Stadler, the president of the Salzburg Festival, said in a telephone interview. "One group ignores it, doesn't want to know, and the other group wants to talk in a serious way about it."
Ms. Rabl-Stadler went to Vienna to see the production, and if her reaction is any indication, things may be changing.
"When I saw the musical, I thought this is not the main way to talk about the past," she said. "It's not the way I would teach it in the schools. But it is one way to tell young people: 'The time was like this. You could be a nice family, and suddenly you could be in misery and unhappiness because of politics.' "
Japanese tourists, she said, know "Edelweiss," many of them no doubt assuming, as Ronald Reagan did some years ago when the Austrian president was visiting, that it is the Austrian national anthem.
At the end of the show at the Volksoper on Monday night, the Viennese audience, many of whose members brought their small children, was invited to sing "Edelweiss" with the assembled actors on stage. It was clear from the response that few of them knew it.