Carrie Underwood to Star in NBC's Live Broadcast of THE SOUND OF MUSIC — Page 12

Not bad at all :)

Updated On: 11/8/13 at 11:22 AM

I can't wait for this to air. Her voice sounds so beautiful! I hope it's a ratings winner and they consider doing other musicals for television.

Angela Lansbury could use some of Julie Andrews' class.

"If the show has few similarities, other than the name, why not call it something else?"

In that case, folks would accuse them of ripping off Murder She Wrote. Better to own it.

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"Angela Lansbury could use some of Julie Andrews' class."

What an ignorant and truly stupid statement to make.

It's all completely live, Wicked.

^ All live.

Yeah, Carrie sounds fantastic. No one should be surprised.

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"You'll be playing Mother Abbess in NBC's live production of "The Sound of Music" on Dec. 5 opposite Carrie Underwood as Maria. Is that a role you've always wanted to play?"

"I grew up with it; but it's certainly never a role I thought I'd be in! For obvious reasons. I have to credit Neil [Meron] for thinking outside of the box and inviting me to be part of it. Most people only know the movie version, so they think of Mother Abbess as this 70-year-old woman; but in the staged version, the first woman to ever play her was 43 years old. And that's right where I am.

I also have ideas about where she's come from and what her life has been, what in her past life led her to put on the habit and take on this lifestyle. I feel like when she guides Maria and pushes her toward living a life outside the convent, I think she does it with some sort of knowledge about what lies beyond the convent walls. She did it, she knows it and she chose the convent walls — that makes her more interesting to me."

I think having the Mother Abbess be of African descent makes "Climb Every Mountain" an even more stronger song. She REALLY knows what it takes to climb some mountains to achieve an impossible dream for a woman of her status and background in 1930s Austria.

Broadway couldn't afford Carrie-she's at the top of her game. She sells out arenas. She'd be crazy to do Broadway at this point.

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People with that kind of money could do it for the experience, and I imagine many performers (especially those who take roles in SOM) would love the experience. It doesn't have to be for a year, or anything.

Still unimpressed with every snippet of Carrie Underwood's Maria that's been released so far. She's much more suited to something like ANNIE GET YOUR GUN rather than THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

So this version is supposed to be an update of Mary Martin's Maria. In the 1998 revival, Rebecca Luker sang I HAVE CONFIDENCE and SOMETHING GOOD but it looks like I HAVE CONFIDENCE didn't make it to the Underwood version, which, like the 1998 revival, uses SOMETHING GOOD in place of AN ORDINARY COUPLE. I wonder why CONFIDENCE was cut...

Updated On: 11/16/13 at 09:57 AM