Op zoek naar Maria


Op zoek naar Maria is a talent competition program that aired in Belgium on Vtm. It premiered on 25 March 2009.
The premise of the series was to find a musical theatre performer to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the 2009 and Roel Vente revival of The Sound of Music at the Efteling Theatre. The show is hosted by Koen Wauters and featured, Linda Lepomme, and Peter de Smet as the judges for the show.
Following a public telephone vote, 27-year-old was chosen as Maria with 25-year-old Fleur Brusselmans as the runner up and Liv Van Aelst in 3rd place.
A commercial advertising the show, featuring over 200 dancers in it, seemingly spontaneously, to "Do-Re-Mi" in Antwerpen-Centraal railway station, has received over 20,000,000 hits on YouTube.

Finalists

Live shows

The live shows saw the finalists eliminated one by one following both individual and group performances. Once eliminated, the leaving contestant ended the programme by leading a performance of "Adieu-Vaarwel" from The Sound of Music with the remaining contestants.

Performances

Deborah De Ridder
Fleur Brusselmans
Liv van Aelst
Katrien Smets
Elke Buyle
Elisabeth Herman
Marian van Klaveren
Sandra Paelinck
Ellen Vandervieren
Helen Geets
Dorien Ackx
Opening songs
Group songs
Sing-offs
The Bottom 2 voted by the public each week had to sing with one other Maria a contrasting song from a musical, then Albert Verlinde would choose one of them to carry on in the competition. In the final, the first viewer's vote put Deborah & Liv in the bottom two, but they didn't have to do a sing-off. Liv was automatically eliminated by the viewers putting her in third place.