More About Music Man
The Music Man is Meredith Willson’s great American valentine to small-town life — affectionate, hilarious, sentimental, and just skeptical enough to keep the sugar from getting too sweet. Set in fictional River City, Iowa, in 1912, the musical drops one spectacularly confident con man into a town full of stubborn citizens who are absolutely certain they cannot be conned.
Enter Professor Harold Hill, a traveling salesman with no musical ability whatsoever and a brilliant scheme: convince the townspeople that their children are headed for moral ruin, sell them instruments and uniforms for a boys’ band, collect the money, and disappear before anyone notices he cannot actually teach music. His problem is Marian Paroo, the town librarian and piano teacher, who quickly realizes that something about Professor Hill does not quite add up. His bigger problem is that River City begins changing him before he can escape it.
Along the way come some of Broadway’s most irresistible songs: the thunderous “Seventy-Six Trombones,” the tongue-twisting “Rock Island,” the barbershop charm of “Lida Rose,” and the glowing romance of “Till There Was You.” Willson’s score seems to capture an entire American town in music — gossiping neighbors, excitable children, blustering politicians, barbershop quartets, marching bands, and all.
Beneath the brass bands and bunting is a surprisingly tender story about second chances, belonging, and the curious fact that sometimes even a fraud can inspire something real. The Music Man is joyful, romantic, spectacularly tuneful, and proof that if you say “Seventy-Six Trombones” confidently enough, an entire town may just start marching behind you.
More About OperaSLO
Age Requirements
Ages 5+
Show Duration
Roughly 2.5 hours with a 20-minute intermission