“The Sound of Music” – Selected reviews – Maria Sartova

“The Sound of Music” – Teatr Muzyczny Gliwice 2014

ANGORA 06.04.2014

One can only envy Gliwice

(…) Maria Sartova, has been steadily developing directing concepts of her Paris champion Bronisław Horowicz as well as the musical trends of Danuta Baduszkowa, with whom she worked in the days of theatrical and television debuts. Her staging of The Sound of Music is not only artistic success. It is the evidence of the continuous development in her director’s craft, stage work, ability to shape the form, as well as mold her performers towards enriching their acting and vocal skills (…)

Sławomir Pietras

Portal Teatralny Katowice 05.2014

Saving power of song

(…) Maria Sartova’s staging remains faithful to the original. However, it imposes new tropes regarding certain issues of performing solutions, especially those relating to the organization of space and movement. The key to success turned out to be a scenic minimalism – waiver of illustrative stage and means of expression. That approach has permitted to highlight what is the most important, which is music and the history told by the use of the music, as well as the developing according to the musical standards melodramatic story which was made less “mawkish” and definitely closer to the modern times (…)

(…) In Sartova’s show, both the first and second background of the events are sketched with the symbols, not with the faithful reflections of the different landscapes of the scenery. Alpine idyll climate is expressed with individual images, sounds, and a proper play of light. Use of the same multimedia techniques emphasizes also the drastic changes in mood, affiliated with the Nazis takeover. The author of this minimalist and functional binding stage is a French production designer and lights director Yves Collet (…)

Magdalena Figzal

PAP 29.03.2014

(…) It is undoubtedly a success. Received a standing ovation Thursday’s premiere of viewers Sound of Music in Gliwice Musical Theatre, directed by Maria Sartova(…)

Rzeczypospolita 31.03.2014

(…) The stage design of Yves Collet is also praiseworthy – especially the giant props – sofa, bed, mountain landscape in the frames, as well as film screenings, emphasizing the mood of the scene. (…)

Danuta Lubina-Cipińska

Dziennik Teatralny 01.04.2014

(…) The Sound of Music did not prove to be a sweet story about singing children and their governess (…)

(…) Over the characters loom, basically throughout the whole performance, the high peaks of the Alps. Any change in the lighting creates a new image of those peaks. So once the mountains are a metaphor, a childhood memory and another time, ominous “overwhelming” the characters. (Production Designer and light Yves Collet). (…)

(…) Freedom in the behavior of children could be found in many crowd scenes with their participation. Learning first songs or yodeling amongst white pillows were not only pleasing to the eye and the ear, but they added a healthy dose of energy (…), (…) They gave the impression of being involved in the play to such extent that they forgot about the world of theatrical fiction. (…)

(…) We therefore wish the theaters and primarily the audiences to have such successes as The Sound of Music, as many as possible so that we could come back from the performances with such satisfaction and joy, as today from Gliwice Musical Theatre. (…)

Paulina Brodzińska

Dziennik Zachodni 01.04.2014

Melodrama with the Alps and Nazism in the background.

(…) Gliwice Music Theatre, not skimping on forces and resources (including the financial ones) presented The Sound of Music … The pacifist tenor of The Sound of Music has gained an unexpected topicality. There was not a spectator, who at the end of the play would not think of the modern Crimea. (…)

(…) This story, though old-fashioned and melodramatic in tone, in my opinion, is a hit. Because apart from music, it has several other indisputable advantages. Those are: not-too-bizarre staging shape (faithful to the events time frame), greatly predisposed lead actress and seven fantastic kids (including a six year old!), playing so naturally and with such a discipline that one can only bow his head to those people who prepared for the play that host of performers. (…)

(…) Maria Sartova not only does not give up on that “Alpine” mawkishness, as if was taken straight out of the stylish oil prints, but she frames it (e.g. in the wedding scene) in a golden frame. And she knows what she’s doing! Contrast of “pretty pictures” and cheerful melodies with the sudden intrusion of Brown Evil, played in contrast in naturalistic conventions, definitely sharpens the horror of the final scene. (…)

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