Maria

"Maria", sometimes known as "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music. This song is sung by the nuns at Nonnberg Abbey, who are exasperated with Maria for being a "flibbertigibbet"; they say that she is frolicsome for the decorous and austere life at the Abbey. The titular question is paraphrased with metaphorical questions, such as: "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?", "How do you keep a wave upon the sand?" and "How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?" These rhetorical questions on problems that cannot be solved act as proof that a problem like Maria is equally intractable. This song gave its title to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 2006 reality TV series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, in which TV viewers voted for a contestant to play the lead role of Maria von Trapp in his London revival of The Sound of Music. Connie Fisher won the TV series and was cast as Maria in the London revival of the show that opened in November 2006 at the London Palladium.