"Der hills... are aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive...!"
Posted on 02/27/2005 1:15:20 PM PST by Pharmboy
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The Nazis are back in Vienna - at least on stage. But this time there's no doubt that they're the bad guys. The latest look at the country's relationship to Hitler is through the melodic looking glass of "The Sound of Music" - the first full staging in Austria of a musical beloved the world over but virtually unknown in the nation it portrays.
After years of denial, official Austria has turned in the past two decades from depicting itself as a victim of Adolf Hitler to acknowledging its key role in the Holocaust.
But some Austrians remain sensitive to the country's Nazi past, and Saturday's premiere - in German, with actors dressed as Nazi storm troopers standing guard in the audience, a theater box filled with mock Nazi dignitaries, and a huge swastika banner draped onstage - dredged up painful memories.
"It's too much, too much," said one elderly woman who refused to give her name as she waited at the coat check Saturday night. "I was 12 the last time I saw such things in any theater."
The melodic adventures of Baron von Trapp, his children and Maria, the governess who becomes von Trapp's wife and mother to the Austrian family before they flee the Nazis, are familiar to untold millions the world over, made famous by the 1965 film version that won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
South Koreans learn the songs as part of their English lessons. Some Dutch newspapers organize readers' tours to show places such as the Bavarian alpine meadow where Julie Andrews sang, "The hills are alive with the sound of music."
Some foreigners think "Edelweiss" - composed for the musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and never sung by the real-life von Trapps - is Austria's national anthem.
Also, Austrian tourism surveys show that three out of four Americans come to Salzburg, the former home of the real-life von Trapp family, because of the musical.
Once there, many of them ignore Mozart, the city's most famous native son, to take part in "The Sound of Music" tour, complete with singalongs and more information about the musical and its history than most non-fans would want to know.
Despite its world success, the musical's combination of kitsch and its focus on a dark part of Austrian history had kept it away from local stages, except for a brief run of a small theater's parody more than a decade ago.
"I worked in America in the 1960s and was asked constantly about 'Edelweiss' and 'The Sound of Music,' and had no clue what it was about,'" said former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, one of those at the premiere at the Volksoper, Vienna's second opera house. "Now I've made up for it."
Vranitzky was chancellor in 1986-1997, a time that saw the first official attempts to come to terms with the country's Nazi past.
The government since has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claims to Nazi victims or their offspring, and political and church leaders routinely speak out against anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance that fed the rise of Hitler in this country and Germany.
Still, Joerg Haider powered his rightist Freedom Party into the government in 2001 with populist rhetoric sometimes tinged with anti-Semitism. Though he has toned down his comments in recent years and his Freedom Party has lost much of its support, it still has an extreme right-wing element known to admire Hitler.
Last year, a poll showed that more than a third of Austrians believe the Nazi era was in some ways positive.
On Saturday, Vranitzky called the Volksoper staging of the Nazi-era musical "a courageous attempt ... both musically and historically."
The bravos and applause Saturday reflected general approval.
And though some in the audience were overheard complaining of triteness in a city more attuned to opera than lighter fare, most appeared comfortable with the musical reminder that Austrians were not only victims but perpetrators of Nazi atrocities.
"That's the way it was," said Sieglinde Fabigan, a woman in her 60s. "I think it's a very good piece for children and teenagers who did not live through that era."
I cannot understand -- or forgive -- urban Jews who flock to see the "funny" Nazis in "The Producers." What is wrong with people?
I think Mel Brooks said that mocking Nazis was his personal form of revenge against them. Notwithstanding the power of mockery, sometimes it seems a bit strange to laugh about the Nazis, given how utterly evil they were.
I haven't seen the musical, but have seen and enjoyed the original movie. I also get a kick out of Mel Brooks's "Hitler Rap," which he did at the time he did "To Be or Not To Be."
Here's the thing: It's a shot at memory of Hitler. Not only is he a villain and a monster. He's the butt of a joke. If he's in some afterlife where he's aware of what goes on the world that sort of insulting of his memory of him probably hurts him more than anything, other than the continued survival and success of the Jews.
I used to work with a guy in NYC who was connected to Broadway. He got tickets to see "The Producers" when it was still in previews and being worked on. As luck would have it, his seat was directly in front of Mel Brooks who was there with his wife, Anne Bancroft. They were still revising the show.
At any rate, when it was over and they all were leaving, this feisty old Jewish man with a cane approaches Brooks and starts screaming at him with a thick Central European accent about "the Nazis not being funny..." and how he suffered in a concentration camp. My friend said Mel was shook up.
Once there, many of them ignore Mozart, the city's most famous native son, to take part in "The Sound of Music" tour,
Unbelievable.
And when some teenage prince wore swastika in private costum party, everybody there freak out...
This lovely Austrian song is the sole bright spot in the show, IMO:
"EDELWEISS"
Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever
"Some foreigners think "Edelweiss" - composed for the musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and never sung by the real-life von Trapps - is Austria's national anthem."
Is this true? I thought it was a real folk song, not the national Anthem. At my mother-in-law's Presbyterian church (it must have some German backround to it) this tune is sung with different words at the end of the service.
Once there, many of (the tourists) ignore Mozart, the city's most famous native son, to take part in "The Sound of Music" tour,
Unfortunately, Mozart's birth place is now over a MacDonald's. He lived in the upstairs apartment. It's a shock to me that this was allowed.
Somebody will probably get upset with me for this joke, but what the hey.
Two middle aged Jewish ladies are in a concentration camp, about to go to the gas chamber, when one says to the other, "So, Minna, you couldn't have gone out with that little Abie fellow, just once?"
The Europeans say that the two greatest achievements of Austria are convincing the world that 1) Hitler was German and 2) Beethoven was Austrian.
The funniest movie scene ever filmed is the Hitler audition from "The Producers."
It's a folk song.
Good points on mocking Hitler.
I'm still waiting however, for the biting ridicule and theatrical trashing of tyrants who killed even more than did Hitler, like Stalin, Mao, etc. just to name two?
Hello Hollywood? Broadway? Anybody listening?
Guess not.
"Der hills... are aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive...!"
That is a tasty little morsel.
I'm pretty sure this is the first movie I ever saw in a theater. Still one of my favorite movies.
'Bout time the Austrians took a look at it.
I saw this play with my daughter, she's about Mel Brooks' biggest fan, and after the "Springtime for Hitler" big number that closes the act and brings down the house, I felt very guilty for applauding. I'm part German too, so maybe that had something to do with my guilt. I told the kid how I felt after the show and she said: Mom, the audience HAS to love that scene and go nuts, otherwise the rest of the play doesn't make sense!
Of course she was right, and I was then very impressed with how they make the audience really a part of the play, and get the needed effect, but so differently from the way it is done in the movie.
I think there's a point to be made about "The Producers" at least, that Hitler and the Nazis are always regarded as anthanema, that's why they think the show will fail. Unlike Hogan's Heros for example where "actual" Nazis are portrayed in a comical way. But I liked that show too, but that's cause Bob Crane (and Richard Dawson!) was soooo cute, what a shame the life Crane lived and the end he met.
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