More than 25 actors and singers, an orchestra of 10 musicians, some thirty performances in English and French at the Théâtre St-Denis by mid-January: this new adaptation of The melody of happiness, directed by Gregory Charles, is very ambitious. But it’s newcomer Klara Martel-Laroche’s brilliant performance as Maria Rainer that’s the highlight of this lovely, if lukewarm show.
We know the efficiency of the plot and the beauty of the airs of The melody of happiness, which have survived the decades and no longer have their proven track record. It is therefore in the details that a production like this is played, especially since the famous musical is not in its first adaptation here – Denise Filitrault had successfully mounted it in 2010 and 2013.
Among the pluses, there is therefore the vocal performance of Klara Martel-Laroche, a 25-year-old classical singer barely out of the Conservatory, who embraces the role of Maria with grace and fervor. As much by her accurate and very rich voice as by her inhabited interpretation and playing, she manages to give her character all the necessary nuances.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Klara Martel-Laroche
The entire cast is vocally up to par and the encounter with the opera is successful, with the actors Éric Paulhus as Captain Von Trapp and Éveline Gélinas as Baroness Elsa Shroeder (both very accurate), the opera singers Monique Pagé – recently seen in the opera Albertine in five stages and impressive in Go on the mountain – as mother Abesse and Éric Thériault as friend Max, the choir of nuns. All enhanced by the choice to have musicians on stage rather than recorded tapes, another advantage of this production.
The Von Trapp children’s band, led by Audrey-Louise Beauséjour in exuberant Liesl – nice revenge for the ousted from Star Academy, who is the only children’s performer who will be in all the performances – obviously ensures the charm of the show. The artists sing well and their group numbers are pretty and lively, even if we can see that Gregory Charles does not manage to reach the same direction of his young actors as, for example, Serge Denoncourt in The chorists.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
The seven children of the Von Trapp family. Several actors take turns from one performance to another to interpret them, except Audrey-Louise Beauséjour (left), who plays the eldest, Liesl.
Even if certain moments are more successful – the presence of two dancers in the ballroom scene, for example, which adds a lot of poetry –, the whole piece suffers from a somewhat messy staging and strange ideas: we still wonder why the giant bridal veil suddenly disappears between the steps of the church. Result, a lack of tone that stretches over two and a half hours (plus a 15-minute intermission, be warned if you go there with young children), which we feel especially in the spoken scenes, but also in the transitions .
Recurring problems
Added to this confused effect is the fact that with all these performers wearing microphones, noises, rustles, poor sound balance and other clacks are numerous, and this, throughout the duration of the show. Recurring and disturbing problems, unworthy of a production of this magnitude – tickets cost between $38.48 for a few rows at the back of the balcony and $141.96 for the first third of the floor, plus $10.95 for fees.
In the same vein, we also wonder about the choice of having no decor at all – apart from a staircase –, but many projections on panels and fabrics, where a mountain is drawn, the stained glass windows of a church, trees or the moon. The effect is quite successful as such, but one-dimensional in the long run if no real element comes to balance it.
And we cannot ignore what puzzled the public during the premiere presented on Monday: the lyrics of these songs that we know by heart are not the same as those of the film, in part or in full. This is particularly the case of Do Re Miprobably the best known of the lot, where “ Fa, it’s easy to sing ” bECOMES ” Fa, half of Fabien », « The, the place where you go ” bECOMES ” La, the feminine of the “, And so on…
The production explained on Tuesday that the license for the French version, which must be negotiated with the firm Concord Theatricals in New York, implies that all the texts used must come from the stage adaptation, and not from that of the film which came a few years later in 1965 – with sometimes different lyrics, as in the case of Do Re Mi. To obtain the rights to the lyrics of the songs in the film, it would therefore have been necessary to negotiate with the rights holders of the film, a long process whose result was not guaranteed.
It is also the lyrics of the songs in the film that were performed for the production put together by Denise Filiatrault a dozen years ago. But whatever the reason, this aspect which should have been communicated at the time of the marketing overshadows a show which above all lacks relief, carried by a singer who is more than inspired, but who is certainly not not live up to its ambitions.
The melody of happiness
Directed by Gregory Charles. With Klara Martel-Laroche, Éric Paulhus, Évelyne Gélinas, Monique Pagé, Éric Thériault, Audrey-Louise Beauséjour, Simon Dufresne and many others.
At the St-Denis Theater and at the Albert-Rousseau HallFrom December 8 to January 14, 2023 and from August 4 to 20, 2023.