Cameron Daddo.
Camera IconCameron Daddo. Credit: Supplied/David Baylis d454131

The Sound of Music: Cameron Daddo leapt at chance to play von Trapp

Tanya MacNaughtonEastern Reporter

BY the end of 2016, Cameron Daddo will have kissed his The Sound of Music co-star Amy Lehpamer more times this year than his wife, model Alison Brahe.

Brahe is living in LA, where the couple has been based the past 25 years and raised their children, while Daddo stars as Captain Georg von Trapp in the lavish London Palladium production touring Australia and opening at Crown Theatre Perth on September 14.

The couple will rectify this distance with the decision to move back to Australia at the end of the year.

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“We figure 25 years is a good amount of time to have a change,” Melbourne born and raised Daddo said.

“We’ll be moving to Sydney because that’s where my wife is from.”

Daddo was born the year The Sound of Music film starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer was released, so missed seeing it at the cinema and grew up in a household not big on watching television, but he did learn the music at school.

“We were always outside building stuff and creating our own fun,” Daddo said.

“That is what has informed my imagination and my brothers too.

“We all write and do our different things in the business, and it was certainly those formative years making stuff, creating; we weren’t watching and having it fed to us, we were out there building it ourselves.”

Daddo said he leapt at the chance to play von Trapp for the same reason he would play other characters.

“They are just iconic roles in well-respected pieces,” he said.

“This musical is truly one of the best written musicals of all time.”

Daddo prepared for the role by studying as much as he could about the real Georg von Trapp up until the point he met Maria Kutschera.

He then started rehearsals and found out what happens to a broken-hearted man when awoken by love and music.

“He has a huge amount of integrity, discernment, nobility and no parent wakes up in the morning and says ‘How can I mess my children up?’,” Daddo said.

“He is a man who is clearly doing the best he can do within the given circumstances; he lost his command in the navy, he lost his Austro-Hungarian navy after World War I, then his wife passed away and left him with a plethora of children.”

Daddo said the best part of his The Sound of Music experience was listening to how much the show meant to audience members.

“It’s pretty rewarding,” he said.

“I don’t do the job to get validated but it’s really nice when you hear how the show had touched someone’s heart.

“I take it very seriously, that aspect people have paid a lot of money to be there and it’s part of the fabric of their life; I want to honour that and make sure I give everything I possibly can to every audience, because they deserve it.”

THE ESSENTIALS

What: The Sound of Music

Where: Crown Theatre Perth

When: From September 14

Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com.au