This is one of my favorite Sondheims and favorite musicals of all time. I was listening to the original (Len Carriou/Glynis Johns) yesterday and pondering something I've always wondered about:
When Fredrik reveals that Anne is "unfortunately still a virgin," why is Desiree so *angry*? I can imagine that she would be aghast by the situation, appalled that her lover is such an idiot that he married a naive teenager and has no idea how to communicate with her, or even that she would laugh at his predicament. But she seems specifically angry at Anne. Why does Desiree say that if she met Anne "I'd strike her first" and in order to meet her she would need "hat and my knife"? Is a woman in this world, even a sheltered teenager married to a widower more than twice her age, so expected to do her "duty" sexually that she is somehow a criminal if she doesn't want to?