The hills are alive . . . with the sound of Carrie Underwood!
NBC has tapped the five-time Grammy winner, 29, to appear in the coveted role of Maria von Trapp in their 2013 three-hour special broadcast event based on the original Broadway musical The Sound of Music.
Set to air in 2013, the telecast will be produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the men behind NBC’s song-and-dance drama Smash.
“Speaking for everyone at NBC, we couldn’t be happier to have the gifted Carrie Underwood take up the mantle of the great Maria von Trapp,” the network’s entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt told Us Weekly in a statement Nov. 30. “She was an iconic woman who will now be played by an iconic artist.”
Set in Austria, The Sound of Music documents the true story of aspiring nun von Trapp, who falls in love with widower Captain von Trapp after she is tasked with caring for his seven children.
The Sound of Music first premiered on Broadway in 1959, and its 1965 film adaptation — starring Julie Andrews as Maria and Christopher Plummer as Capt. von Trapp and featuring songs including “My Favorite Things” — won a Best Picture Oscar.
