Review: The Sound of Music

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music is pure musical theater comfort food. It’s an old-fashioned casserole of familiar, well-loved ingredients—songs you know every word to and silently sing along with; a love story that unites two lonely souls; motherless children who get a perfect replacement mom; a nun who finds her true calling; and heroes that defy evil Nazis.

The current touring production now at the California Musical Theatre serves up a warm, wonderful Sound of Music. There no surprises, no glitz or glamor, no over-the-top numbers; it’s all just simple and satisfying. The cast is solid, the live orchestra is impressive and the sets and lighting are striking—both grand and intimate at the same time.

It’s the youngest members of this cast, the seven singing siblings, who steal the show. And leading the von Trapp children is Sacramento native Paige Silvester, a Loretto High School graduate who started her professional career at the Music Circus even before getting her degree in musical theater, moving to New York and traveling with this current production for the last year.

Silvester delivers a sweet “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” one of the very many earworm songs that make The Sound of Music a classic, including “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” “Maria,” Edelweiss” “and “So Long, Farewell.”