Any group that is going to present this show with young singers needs to be aware that while everyone in the cast, no matter how young, has probably seen the Julie Andrews film, when you order the orchestral parts you get the 1959 Mary Martin keys. Julie had a high soprano voice, Mary, in 1959, was definitely an alto, so all the songs are written in much lower keys.
Mary Martin
In the days when I was teaching a number of high school age singers, I always warned the girls trying out for the role of Maria, 'You are auditioning with the high key from the Movie Book. If you get the part, you are going to have to sing everything down about a fifth. Several of them got the part and were really not effective vocally in the lower key.
This was part of the problem last night. For Maria, and for some of the other female roles, the tessitura lies right over the passaggio. For a trained singer, one has hopefully learned how to cope with this area of the voice, but for a young person with little or no vocal training, this 'break' in the voice becomes the Grand Canyon. The young singer tries to sing the lower notes in the songs in chest voice and then when they have to go up, the voice nearly disappears into a tiny head voice.
The Mother Abbess has a similar, but different, problem. 'Climb every mountain' is practically an operatic aria. Patricia Neway, who sang this role in the original production of the work, had previously sung the role of Magda in Gian-Carlo Menotti's The Consul. This is opera at its best. Very few 16 or 17 year old voices can cut this kind of singing.
The young male roles have an easier time since none of them have ranges that go very high, thereby avoiding the male passaggio. Theodore Bikel, who sang the role of Baron von Trapp in the original production, had a mellow, folk singer voice. Most young men of high school age don't sound like this, but it is always easier for a young man to get away with singing show tunes than for a young woman.
I realise that from year to year the talent pool in any school may vary wildly. Almost all of the cast in last night's performance acted their parts well, but the vocal problems inherent in these roles make Sound of Music not the best choice for a high school musical.
A friend and former student of mine wrote to me just a day or so ago that she has been judging high school musicals in New Jersey for some group. One show she had to review was Sweeney Todd. I can't imagine any high school group that could possibly bring this off vocally. Apparently, when Paul Plishka was in high school he had a voice that sounded about the same as it did when he first went to the Met. OK. Then you can do Sweeney.
