10/18/2024
10-18-24 Friday Salzburg Haus Wien
We all know that the movie the Sound of Music was based upon a true story, but how much do we know about the true story? A lot of the story follows actual real events, yet a lot was also made for the big screen. I’m okay with that but the von Trapps are not happy with a lot of the movie. I’m also good with that because without the movie we wouldn’t know who they were or anything about their story. I didn’t intend for my stay in Salzburg to be about the movie it just worked out that way since I was here. The Sound of Music is easily on my top 5 movie list.
I took a guided tour of the Feistspielhaus, the venue for the real & movie Salzburg Festival. It doesn’t look like much from the outside. There were no tours in English the entire time I was in town. I managed to sweet talk/smile my way into a group doing a tour in German. It was 7 euro & got me inside. An hour & a half tour and I understood not one word. While they were doing their German thing & decided to look up the real story of the von Trapp family. Here is some of what I found comparing & contrasting the real story with our beloved movie. I’ve included a bit of my own opinion here & there. There is a great reference at the end from a researcher at the National Archives if you want to know more. Here is the venue from the outside and the inside with a gigantic cloak room with a Rolex wall clock, of which there were many.
Maria was indeed a novice at the Nonnberg Convent. As a novice she was not yet committed to the order, the Reverend Mother sent her to the Baron because she was a qualified teacher and to let her find her own way. She was sent not as a governess for all the children, but as a tutor for the Barron‘s daughter Maria. Maria von Trapp had been sick with Scarlett Fever, the same illness that took her mother. She had been ill for a long time and was behind in school. Maria was sent for Maria but quickly fell in love with all the children.
The Nonnberg Convent is way up on a hill just below the spectacular Hohensalzburg Fortress. The convent is below on the left of the castle. While I was there, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was a place I have known for 55 years. As I took this picture a nun walked around the corner. She is in the bottom left. Okay, I timed it that way, you know orchestrated. As she walked by, she struck up a conversation. It caught me a bit off guard. She asked where I was from, I told her Texas USA. I asked if she lived there. She said yes, but she was on holiday and not wearing her proper attire. She said: “As I walk around tourists take pictures of me and I wish I was in my usual clothes” Then she asked who our next president was going to be. I told her I did not know. She asked if I liked Trump. I said that I did. I couldn’t tell what she thought of that, and I tried. She had experience with people, she had no expression.
The real Maria was not nearly as jovial and pretty as Julie Andrews’ character portrays. She was rather plain looking, not that is a crime, but she was not beautiful & smiley like Julia Andrews, and who is? People will say the same thing when Brad Pitt plays me in my biography! The family described her as having a volatile temper, sometimes she would fly off the handle and was even known to throw things around! One child described her as a thunderstorm. It would pass and then things would be nice.
One of the issues the family had with the movie was that the baron was nowhere near as stern and cold as portrayed by the great Christopher Plumber, especially in the beginning of the movie. They describe him as gentle, jovial and playful. The portrayal of Baron von Trapp is the major issue the family has with the movie.
The baron had attained his title by distinctive and meritorious service as a submarine commander in World War I. Then in the early 1930s, his banking business ventures failed as did many businesses during the depression. He reluctantly took the family on concert tours to pay the bills
It is true that they sang in the musical venue that I visited this morning. It is absolutely beautiful and part of it is carved out of a sheer rock face. Today they have it set up for a different performance (Ugly). It was instantly recognizable. I was anxious to get this picture of the tunnel from which the von Trapps did not emerge. The same tunnel where the N**i guard runs out and exclaims “They’re gone!” The 3rd picture is of a tunnel through the mountain for traffic/people to get from one side of town to the other. The theater is 50 yards to the left of the tunnel. The 2nd pic is from outside the music hall. That castle is now a 5-star hotel, if you have more money than you know what do with you can stay there. Me? I’ll take my rustic $65/night place every time.
They did win the world famous Salzburg singing festival in 1936. The movie definitely deviates from the true story toward the end when the new N**i governor was at the concert. It was true that the baron had invoked the ire of the N**is by refusing to fly the N**i flag at his house and also refusing to have his family to sing at Hitler’s birthday party in 1938. They were skating on thin ice. The family was also very religious and could see the N**i anti religion as a threat.
The song Edelweiss is not a national Austrian anthem as I have thought my entire life. It is the last song penned by the great Oscar Hammerstein just before he died in 1959. None the less, in my world it is. When I see Christopher Plummer sing that song in blatant defiance of the N**i governor I feel patriotic pride. True or not the character feels strong national identity and disdain for the new regime. He knows at that point what his destiny is going to be. I can put myself right there. When it comes to good versus evil what do you do? The easy path is to cave in, as so many did. The tough choice it to take your family and flee if you can. Stay & fight is another option, but I can’t see that for out good baron, and really that doesn’t usually turn out well. So every time I see that clip I know how he feels and I know what I would do.
In real life however they did not leave the concert hall and flee. They did not take the nun’s car and walk over the mountains with suitcases & instruments. That would be crazy and they all would have died trying. As part of their regular concert tour, they got on the train from Salzburg and went to Italy. They just never came back. They eventually made their way to America. They had some trouble with our immigration process (political comment excluded) and were held for three days at Ellis Island. They were finally allowed into US and eventually settled in Stowe Vermont. One of the things Maria said about the movie was that of course they didn’t climb over the mountains. Don’t they know geography? As strange as it sounds the way the border works as if you leave Salzburg and go south over the mountains, you end up in Bavaria Germany.
Another thing about the movie where there is, in my opinion a serious inaccuracy is when the nuns assist the von Trapps in their escape from the N**is. If I’ve learned one thing in the last month is that the N**is had no sense of humor. Had the nuns aided family there would have been very serious and dire repercussions. Especially with a new governor. But it makes a good story and I love the nuns laughing with the coil wires! In real life that wouldn’t have ended well.
Maria and the baron did have three of their own children for a total of 10. She also said that when the baron asked her to marry him and become a second mother to his children that had he not included the children in his proposal? She might’ve said no. But after the years, she did grow to love him, but in the beginning, she really loved the children.
They all literally lived happily ever after
CAB 29
Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family | National Archives
