R Sans H

Surely, any fan of Rodgers & Hammerstein would welcome a more authentic reinterpretation of the stage version of “The Sound of Music,” which director Susan Schulman only halfway promises, although I anxiously await her Salzburg orchestrations, period-piece sets andominous Nazi banners (“Making a New List of Favorite Things,” by Scarlet Cheng, Feb. 27).

She counters her stated goal, I fear, by importing two second-rate songs written by Richard Rodgers himself for the movie when Oscar Hammerstein was no longer around to supply inspired lyrics or counter the criminal deletion of the show’s two darkest numbers, “No Way to Stop It” and “How Can Love Survive?” The imported songs (“I Have Confidence” and the stupefyingly obvious “Something Good”) come off as caricatures of excessive R&H; movieland sweetness.

And Schulman was striving for a tad more realism? Please.

DAVID LEWIS

Piedmont