MARIA AUGUSTA VON TRAPP & 'THE SOUND OF MUSIC'

Maria Von Trapp

Today, Tonyi Tamaki and her friends have continued their visit to Salzburg discovering the fascinating life of Maria Von Trapp the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers who inspired the famous film The Sound of Music performanced by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

Before arriving to the public local library where they have been documenting about Baroness von Trapp, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 68).

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Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS, née Kutschera, 26 January 1905–28 March 1987, also known as Baroness von Trapp, was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. She wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1959) and its 1965 film version.

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Maria was born on 26 January 1905 to Augusta (Rainer) and Karl Kutschera. She was delivered on a train heading from her parents' village in Tyrol to a hospital in Vienna, Austria. She was an orphan by her tenth birthday. She graduated from the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna at age 18 in 1923. In 1924, she entered Nonnberg Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg, as a postulant intending to become a nun.

Maria Von Trapp

Maria was asked to teach one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg von Trapp in 1926, while she was still a schoolteacher at the abbey. His wife Agatha had died in 1922 from scarlet fever. Eventually, Maria began to look after the other children, as well.

Captain Trapp saw how much she cared about his children and asked her to marry him, although he was 25 years her senior. She was frightened and fled back to Nonnberg Abbey to seek guidance from the mother abbess, who advised her that it was God's will that she should marry him.

She then returned to the family and accepted the proposal. She wrote in her autobiography that she was very angry on her wedding day, both at God and at her husband, because what she really wanted was to be a nun. I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after. They were married on 26 November 1927 and had three children together: Rosmarie, Eleonore, and Johannes.

The Trapps faced financial ruin in 1935. He had transferred his savings from a bank in London to an Austrian bank run by a friend named Frau Lammer. Austria was experiencing economic difficulties during a worldwide depression because of the Crash of 1929, and Lammer's bank failed. To survive, the Trapps discharged most of their servants, moved into the top floor of their home, and rented out the other rooms. The archbishop sent Father Franz Wasner to stay with them as their chaplain, and this began their singing career.

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Soprano Lotte Lehmann heard the family sing, and she suggested they perform at concerts. When the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg heard them on radio, he invited them to perform in Vienna.

After performing at a festival in 1935, they became a popular touring act. They experienced life under the Nazis after the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938. Life became increasingly difficult as they witnessed hostility towards Jewish children by their classmates, the use of children against their parents, the advocacy of abortion both by Maria's doctor and by her son's school, and finally by the induction of Georg into the German Navy.

They visited Munich in the summer of 1938 and encountered Hitler at a restaurant. In September, the family left Austria and traveled to Italy, then to England and finally the United States. The Nazis made use of their abandoned home as Heinrich Himmler's headquarters.

Maria Von Trapp

Initially calling themselves the Trapp Family Choir, the von Trapps began to perform in the United States and Canada. Charles Wagner was their first booking agent, then they signed on with Frederick Christian Schang.

Thinking the name Trapp Family Choir too churchy, Schang Americanized their repertoire and, following his suggestion, the group changed its name to the Trapp Family Singers. The family, which by then included ten children, was soon touring the world giving concert performances. Alix Williamson served as the group's publicist for over two decades. After the war, they founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief fund, which sent food and clothing to people impoverished in Austria.

In the 1940s, the family moved to Stowe, Vermont where they ran a music camp when they were not touring. In 1944, Maria, Johanna, Martina, Maria, Hedwig, and Agathe applied for U.S. citizenship, whereas Georg never applied to become a citizen. Rupert and Werner became citizens by serving during World War II, while Rosmarie and Eleonore became citizens by virtue of their mother's citizenship. Johannes was born in the United States in Philadelphia in September 1939 during a concert tour. Georg von Trapp died in 1947 in Vermont after suffering lung cancer.

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The family made a series of 78-rpm records for RCA Victor in the 1950s, some of which were later issued on RCA Camden LPs. There were also a few later recordings released on LPs, including some stereo sessions. In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in Papua New Guinea. In 1965, Maria moved back to Vermont to manage the Trapp Family Lodge, which had been named Cor Unum. She began turning over management of the lodge to her son Johannes, although she was initially reluctant to do so. Hedwig returned to Austria and worked as a teacher in Umhausen.

Maria von Trapp died of heart failure on 28 March 1987 at 82 in Morrisville, Vermont, three days following surgery. She is interred in the family cemetery at the lodge, along with her husband and five of her step-children.

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The Sound of Music is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.

The Sound of Music, 1965

Set in Austria on the eve of the Anschluss in 1938, the musical tells the story of Maria, who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and eventually their widowed father, Captain von Trapp.

He is ordered to accept a commission in the German navy, but he opposes the Nazis. He and Maria decide on a plan to flee Austria with the children. Many songs from the musical have become standards, such as Edelweiss, My Favorite Things, Climb Ev'ry Mountain, Do-Re-Mi, and the title song The Sound of Music.

The original Broadway production, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel, opened in 1959 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, out of nine nominations. The first London production opened at the Palace Theatre in 1961. The show has enjoyed numerous productions and revivals since then.

It was adapted as a 1965 film musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which won five Academy Awards. The Sound of Music was the last musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein; Oscar Hammerstein died of stomach cancer nine months after the Broadway premiere.

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Music acts like a magic key,

to which the most tightly closed heart opens.

Maria Von Trapp