Underwood is alive with The Sound of Music

NBC is partnering with the "Smash" producing team of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (film versions of the Oscar-winning "Chicago" and "Hairspray") for "The Sound of Music." The pair also is producing the upcoming 85th Annual Academy Awards.

"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," said Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment.. "She was an iconic woman who will now be played by an iconic artist."

"The Sound of Music," set in pre-WWII Austria, is based on the romantic true story of von Trapp, an aspiring nun who leaves the abbey to become a governess for the widower Captain von Trapp's seven children and finds herself falling in love with her employer and questioning her religious calling. It premiered on Broadway in 1959, where it broke box-office records and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The 1965 film version won the Best Picture Oscar. The show features a libretto by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse and a score by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) that includes My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Mi, Edelweiss and So Long, Farewell.

This will not be the first time Underwood has acted. She made her big screen in the 2011 feature "Soul Surfer," following a guest TV role on "How I Met Your Mother." She starred in her own holiday variety TV special in 2009 and has co-hosted the CMA Awards for the past five years.