A funny thing happened on the way to the NBC live production of “The Sound of Music.”
New York’s theater snobs erupted in a fit of pique at the announcement that Carrie Underwood — the “American Idol” winner who went on to sell 45 million records and have an amazing career for any singer in any category — was going to play Maria von Trapp.
Just get a load of the snotty comments. Writes someone named “dreaming” on Broadwayworld.com: “This is going to be a disaster. A country singer as Maria von Trapp??? What next, Ozzy Osbourne as the Captain?!”
Others, on talkingbroadway.com/alllivechat, pick apart Underwood’s pronunciation of vowels in an early promotional clip:
“Oh boy, that recording of Carrie Underwood singing the title song . . . is scary. Her phrasing is completely clueless; she stumbles over the lyrics, and instead of singing ‘from the lake to the trees,’ she sings ‘thoo the trees’; and the vowel sound she produces on the word ‘laugh’ (in ‘to laugh like a brook’) is painful. Yikes.”
Many “Sound of Music” fans believe Julie Andrews owns the role of Maria von Trapp. And theater folk may think Broadway owns “The Sound of Music.” In reality, the only people who own “The Sound of Music” are those who handle the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate. And guess what, theater “experts”? Ted Chapin, president of Rodgers and Hammerstein — who administers the copyrights for R&H productions from “high schools to colleges to dinner theaters to Broadway to West End to China to Moscow” — signed off on Underwood when producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron said they wanted to cast her as Maria.
In an interview with The Post, Chapin said, “Part of my job is to find ways to keep the Rodgers & Hammerstein properties alive for new generations and I’m interested in ideas that will do that. Carrie’s talented and she’s spirited.” Chapin saw the first run-through yesterday at Grumman studios in Bethpage, NY, and says, “She’s just thrown herself into it. Clearly, Carrie Underwood will not be imitating Julie Andrews. It’s a bold move for her.”
Chapin also remembered how New York theater snobs sniffed when Reba McEntire replaced Bernadette Peters in “Annie Get Your Gun.” “People said, ‘What?’ But she was extraordinary,” he says. “These country singers, they know discipline.”
Even Andrews herself has given Underwood her blessing, saying to Zap2it, “Fifty years later, it’s time somebody had another crack at it.”
So what, then, is the problem?
Do any of these grumblers think NBC wasn’t going to put a star in a live, three-hour, multimillion dollar production? Underwood’s fan base was something Zadan and Meron, whose 1997 production of “Cinderella” with Brandy Norwood and Whitney Houston drew 60 million viewers, were very interested in. And do these grumblers imagine that the supporting cast — which includes five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, Tony winner Christian Borle, Laura Benanti and other pros — isn’t delighted to be singing before millions of people who might never travel to New York to see a Broadway show?
“The cast all understands that absent someone like Carrie Underwood a project like this would never get on the air,” Chapin says.
A show as timeless as “The Sound of Music” can weather a little experimentation with a big-name star who has the vocal chops to sing a Rodgers and Hammerstein score. And it might be the better for it.
The New York theater snobs, as they peer across the great cultural moat at the rest of us, need to get over themselves.