THE VON TRAPP FAMILY
While still a schoolteacher at the abbey, Maria was hired to tutor one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg von Trapp. The child had scarlet fever and was too ill to walk to school. Eventually, Maria began to look after the other children as well.
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| Maria Von Trapp in 1948 |
At the age of 22 Maria Kutschera married 47-year-old Georg von Trapp on November 26, 1927. They wed in the church of Nonnberg Abbey with all seven children present.
Maria bore Georg two daughters and a son, bringing the total number of the von Trapp children to ten.
The Von Trapp family lost their fortune in the worldwide Great Depression, and the children's singing careers were purely a way to earn a livelihood.
Soprano Lotte Lehmann heard the family sing, and she suggested they perform at concerts. When the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg heard them on the radio, he invited them to perform in Vienna.
The Von Trapps moved to America after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938. The day after they left, Hitler ordered the Austrian borders shut. The Nazis made use of their abandoned home as Heinrich Himmler's headquarters.
Initially calling themselves the "Trapp Family Choir", the von Trapps began to perform in the United States and Canada.
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| Trapp Family Singers preparing for a concert in Boston in 1941. |
The von Trapps settled in Stowe, Vermont, where they opened the Trapp Family Lodge, which is operational to this day.
Maria Augusta von Trapp's memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers was published in 1949 by J. B. Lippincott Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Maria sold the rights to her memoir to German producers who made two films. The Trapp Family and its sequel, The Trapp Family in America, were hugely popular in post-War West Germany.
Because she'd sold the rights to the German producers, Maria and the von Trapps didn't see any money from The Sound of Music's success.
THE MUSICAL
The Sound of Music musical was based on Maria Von Trapp's 1956 memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers and the 1956 German movie The Trapp Family.
The lyrics were written by Oscar Hammerstein II and the music composed by Richard Rodgers.
The Sound of Music musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959. Both of the major New York critics hated it, finding it way too saccharine, but producers already had $2 million in advance ticket sales their lack of enthusiasm didn't really matter.
The Sound of Music's original title was The Singing Heart.
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| Original poster of musical. Wikipedia |
The Broadway musical was the final collaboration of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; Hammerstein died of stomach cancer nine months after the opening.
"Edelweiss" was the last song Oscar Hammerstein ever wrote, at the last minute during the show's tryout in Boston.
Mary Martin played the original Maria. During her two years in the Broadway show, she only missed one show.
The real-life Baroness Maria von Trapp fell from a tree and broke her arm while coaching Mary Martin for the role.
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| Mary Martin and children in a publicity photo, 1959 |
Due to the design of the two-story set, Martin had to run three miles during every show to make her entrances and exits.
The play won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical and a third Best Actress for Martin (following South Pacific and Peter Pan).
The original cast recording of The Sound of Music was nearly as popular as the show itself. Recorded just a week after the show's Broadway premiere and released by Columbia Records, the album was number one on the Billboard charts for 16 weeks.
THE FILM
The Sound Of Music movie, starring Julie Andrews as Maria, had its premiere in New York on March 2, 1965.
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| Theatrical release poster by Howard Terpning |
Director Robert Wise interviewed more than 200 children to cast the von Trapp siblings. Patti Duke, Mia Farrow, Sharon Tate and Geraldine Chaplin all auditioned for the role of Leisl, which eventually went to Charmian Carr. Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss also auditioned to be von Trapp children.
Growing pains were a problem for the filmmakers during shooting: Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich) grew six inches in six months.
Two of the actors who played major characters did not actually sing in the movie. Christopher Plummer's singing voice was dubbed by Bill Lee, and Peggy Wood's was dubbed by Margery McKay.
While filming the iconic opening scene, twirling in the hills of Austria, Julie Andrews kept getting knocked down in the mud by the gusts from the helicopter carrying the camera.
Charmian Carr slipped and fell through a window in the gazebo while filming "Sixteen Going on Seventeen." Her bandaged ankle had to be airbrushed out in later versions of the film.
During the shooting of the movie, the city of Salzburg refused to allow Nazi flags to be hung off buildings for filming. Robert Wise threatened to instead use real newsreel footage of the city enthusiastically greeting Hitler. The city quickly backpedalled and allowed the shot.
There were plenty of differences between Maria Augusta von Trapp's 1949 memoir and The Sound of Music film. For one thing, the von Trapps did escape Austria as the Nazis came to power, but they didn't flee over the Alps, they got on a train to Italy and then traveled to America, where they had a concert tour scheduled.
Maria Von Trapp was not invited to the premiere of the movie. Von Trapp later inquired why and producers told her, “There were no seats left,” without apology.
If you look closely at the film, you'll spot the real Maria von Trapp in a cameo, walking past a stone archway while Julie Andrews sings "I Have Confidence."
The Sound of Music won five Oscars in 1965, including Best Picture. It's one of only four films ever to win a Tony Award for Best Play or Musical, and later win Best Picture.
It had the longest first run in U.S. cinemas ever at four and a half years.
A cinema manager in Seoul, South Korea felt that The Sound of Music was too long, so he shortened it by cutting out all the songs.
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| Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews on location in Salzburg, 1964 |
Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution of the mid-sixties banned The Sound Of Music. The Chinese leader stated it was an example of western pornography. He only allowed uplifting films and songs which upheld the class struggle.
The Sound of Music is the third-highest-grossing film of all time at the U.S. box office, adjusted for inflation, according to Box Office Mojo. It is behind Gone With the Wind, at #1 and Star Wars.
Sources Broadway, Monterey Herald
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