It was a strange sight, this Chinese troupe on stage pretending to be Austrians, and it became even more bizarre when they started singing Do-Re-Mi in Cantonese.
The tale is by now a world-famous classic: The Sound of Music, the award-winning musical adapted from Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse's remarkable book about the real story of a young convent novice who brought back meaning to the lives of a widower naval officer and his seven children through the power of music.
By adapting it into Cantonese, the High Noon Production Company was able to attract a family audience at the opening night. With the translated Cantonese libretto, even the youngest in the audience could follow the story without much difficulty, other than some questions on the history of the Nazis in Austria in the 1930s.
But the essence of the show - the music - failed to bring the stage alive. Fourteen pieces, including the theme song, My Favourite Things, Do-Re-Mi, 16 Going On 17, So Long, Farewell, Climb Ev'ry Mountain and Edelweiss were re-written and sung in Chinese. But they didn't quite strike the right chord.
This monosyllabic language hardly fits the music. Neither of the two leading characters filled the air in the Grand Theatre with any semblance of the delightful notes of Julie Andrews.
Maria, the novice, probably needs to learn more from the Mother Abbess whose voice really climbed every mountain, and Captain Georg von Trapp might perhaps have benefited from a stint at the navy conservatory.
