A ‘Sound of Music’ Needed for These Times
By • September 25, 2025 0 383
It’s been a long time since I left a theater with such happiness, filled with music and almost dancing to my car. It’s been a long time since the music of a live show was all so encompassing that it dominates your head with joyful sounds and lyrics for a week after the show.
This is what happened after attending the production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” currently playing at the Kennedy Center. It was last performed in Washington, D.C., eight years ago.
The sets were sumptuous from both the inside and outside of a palatial estate or from an abbey in the mountains. The alpine meadows, peaks and lakes of the environment were always on view and their impact was always felt.
The cast was almost perfect from the seven children with melodious harmonious voices, Maria, the sprightly governess described as “a moonbeam in your hand,” Captain von Trapp and his staff and friends, and most especially the sisters of the abbey. The soaring voice of the mother Abbess brought the almost packed audience in the Opera House to their feet several times.
There was even a live orchestra and paper programs rather than a lifeless QR code to be read on an iPhone, as has been the post-pandemic offering of the past few years at the Kennedy Center.
Best of all was the glorious music of Rodgers and Hammerstein that glued the show together and refused to leave the heads of the audience long after the show was over.
All week long, the show’s many familiar tunes and lyrics have uplifted my daily tasks: “My Favorite Things,” “ Climb Every Mountain,” “Something Good,” “16 Going On 17,” “Edelweiss” and of course “The Sound of Music.”
The show runs through Oct. 5, and it’s a gift for these fraught times.
