Splendid vocals of SPH's 'The Sound of Music'
Evi Mariani The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music was the perfect choice for the recent Sekolah Pelita Harapan (SPH) performance.
Full of beautiful songs that are familiar to Indonesian audiences the school could hardly go wrong, particularly considering the focus of SPH's performance was the vocals and the orchestra.
Because almost all of SPH's performers had beautiful voices -- supported by high sound quality, thanks to sound designer Murray Keidge, who came all the way from Australia -- the audience could overlook shortcomings in other areas.
Presumably, you have all watched The Sound of Music more than once, so let us skip the story.
The performance opened with a choir of nuns who sang in perfect harmony. The song "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" was performed by three students.
Playing the Reverend Mother, Lisa Adiputra, 16, showed potential of someday being a great soprano, while shy Kendal Metcalfe, 15, who apart from her minor role as a nun was also cast in the leading role of Maria Reiner in the Saturday matinee show, pleased the audience with her lilting voice.
Sanjana Kush Mahtani, 15, who played Maria for three consecutive nights from Thursday to Saturday, deserved the leading role because of her vocal quality and her passionate acting.
A preschooler at SPH, Audrey Jemima Ruth, 5, demonstrated the most natural acting ability on Thursday night. She managed to become the center of attention with her enthusiastic dance and movement as well as her bashfully cute vocals.
Stanley Kurnia, 17, the author of the recently launched English-language novel The Corruption , deserves special mention for his fresh take on the role of George von Trapp's friend Max Detweiler, despite his average voice.
In general, all performers, foreigners and Indonesians alike, were articulate English speakers.
However, although they had rehearsed for seven months -- and every day after school for the last five months -- the quality of the students' acting was varied.
Leading actor Brandon Wirakesuma, who played Austrian navy officer Captain George von Trapp for Thursday and Saturday noon, appeared nervous on stage. He seemed an awkward pair to the enthusiastic and confident Sanjana.
There were several disconcertingly quiet moments and instances when props were annoyingly hauled or dragged on stage.
The choreography was also lifeless making the large stage at Teater Tanah Airku at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah appear empty and oversized at times.
However, the orchestra, conducted by Therese Wirakesuma, was consistently good. The SPH musicians were assisted by some musicians from the University of Pelita Harapan and some professional musicians from Yogyakarta.
Despite some shortcomings, the audience left the theater content, while the performers themselves seemed to have a good time on stage, despite their understandable nervousness.