You'd have a scene with a man and a woman talking to one another and then one of them would break out in song, the other would join in, this would go on for four or five minutes and then the song would end and the two went back to normal conversation. It just made no sense to me.
Then I watched - really watched - the Sound of Music (It's 50th anniversary was celebrated yesterday).
Suddenly it hit me. The music served the story. The songs often brought depth and meaning where normal dialog might have not given the same emotion. Now, I'm a convert. I love musicals. "Phantom of the Opera," and "Les Miz" are two of my favorites. But nothing beats the Sound of Music.
When my dear, sweet wife and I did some traveling in Europe in 2011, we had a chance to spend a few days in Salzberg, the one time home of the Von Trapp family. Naturally, we had to take the "Sound of Music" coach tour. We visited many of the sites where filming took place. For some reason I couldn't locate most of the pictures we took. But here are a couple:
1st photo below: Remember the first kiss by Maria and the Captain? It began to rain and they took refuge in a glass pavilion. Sherri and I get our own kiss in front of the pavilion. Note that it's locked. We heard that too many people had hurt themselves running around the benches (like in the movie) so tourists were no longer able to go inside.
2 photo: Remember the scene where the kids are hanging on trees as Captain Von Trapp motors down the road? Here's the trees and the road.
