So why am I bringing this subject up? PBS recently had the latest version of The Sound of Music, the London revival of 2015, as a Great Performance. And if you missed it, the show streams until November 21 on PBS Passport, then again on December 26 at pbs.org/gperf. Feel free to contribute.
Kara Tointon as Maria was particularly good in the 2015 production. There is, of course, a long history to The Sound of Music.
It all began in 1926 when Maria, a 21-year old novice soon to become a nun, was sent to take care of Maria, one of the seven (three more of their own came from 1929 to 1939, the youngest in the USA) children of the Georg von Trapp family, whose wife had passed away in 1922. This portion of the story is generally ignored by all those above productions, for the reality is that Georg married Maria in 1927, eleven years before they left Salzburg, Austria. Georg was a decorated submarine captain and hero of Austria.
Her 1949-book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, indicates that she did not love the father, but adored the children. She was a quarter century younger, there was no physical resemblance to Mary Andrews and she had a terrible temper.
The family did win first place in the 1936 Salzburg Music Festival, which was indeed a big deal, but they did not leave Austria until 1939. The family also did not lug their instruments over any mountains, but merely left on a train to Italy, for he was an Italian citizen. They settled in Vermont, and had successful singing tours into 1955.
They also ran the Trapp Family Lodge, and you can still stay there. They sold off their rights and did not benefit much from The Sound of Music revenues. Maria died in 1987. Here, Julie Andrews and Maria together singing Edelweiss and more. Finally, a 46-minute documentary of The Sound of Music family.
No one is aware of this, but a 1956 German comedy-drama production of The Trapp Family (this is the complete 1 hr 49 min movie) became one of the most successful films of the 1950's in Europe. Then, two years later, a sequel, The Trapp Family in America (again, the whole film).
Maria von Trapp's memoir spurred The Sound of Music by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, from which came the 1959 broadway musical by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. This was the last Rogers and Hammerstein collaboration, for nine months after the Broadway premiere, the latter died of stomach cancer.
The 1965 film with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer won five Academy Awards. This nearly 3-hour long movie seems now to regularly be ad nauseam shown on television. Still a great film of a memorable family.
Her 1949-book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, indicates that she did not love the father, but adored the children. She was a quarter century younger, there was no physical resemblance to Mary Andrews and she had a terrible temper.
They also ran the Trapp Family Lodge, and you can still stay there. They sold off their rights and did not benefit much from The Sound of Music revenues. Maria died in 1987. Here, Julie Andrews and Maria together singing Edelweiss and more. Finally, a 46-minute documentary of The Sound of Music family.
No one is aware of this, but a 1956 German comedy-drama production of The Trapp Family (this is the complete 1 hr 49 min movie) became one of the most successful films of the 1950's in Europe. Then, two years later, a sequel, The Trapp Family in America (again, the whole film).
Maria von Trapp's memoir spurred The Sound of Music by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, from which came the 1959 broadway musical by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. This was the last Rogers and Hammerstein collaboration, for nine months after the Broadway premiere, the latter died of stomach cancer.
The 1965 film with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer won five Academy Awards. This nearly 3-hour long movie seems now to regularly be ad nauseam shown on television. Still a great film of a memorable family.
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