Syndication
‘The Sound of Music’: A Family Tradition
VON TRAPPS: From left: Amanda, Melanie, Sofia, Justin.
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More in The ShmoozeIn a movie scene permanently etched in the minds of many, Julie Andrews holds a golden-haired girl close to her chest while hiding in the tomblike chamber of a convent in Austria. “You must be very quiet. Hold tight to me,” she says as SS soldiers rush into the room, boots pounding and whistles shrilling.
It might be easy to forget that “The Sound of Music” is based on a true story, but the von Trapps existed long before Rodgers and Hammerstein’s catchy tunes, and the family’s musical legacy lives on. In fact, the great-grandchildren of Georg von Trapp, the patriarchal captain — Sofia, 20; Melanie, 18; Amanda, 17, and Justin, 13 — have become singing sensations in their own right.
The young von Trapps tour nine months out of the schoolyear, and they visited the Holocaust Museum Houston earlier this summer before performing with the Houston Symphony on July 19.
While the four singers have been to Dachau, Sofia explains this was their first visit to a Holocaust museum. They were given a private tour, and Sofia described the visit as extremely moving. “It’s amazing to think that could have been our family had we not escaped in 1938,” she said, remarking on her great-grandfather’s refusal to lead a Nazi submarine fleet.
The von Trapps, who live in Kalispell, Mont., are taking a break for the rest of the summer and will begin touring again this fall.
Comments
Ever since I saw the Sound of Music film when I was a teenager about 35 years ago, the movie was always in my memory as a very attractive and beautiful singing film,especially as I had read the translation of the Von Trapp book before. But I regret that the young generations now will not see the film when I told them too, maybe because they are used to action or sensual films and never see artful films nowadays. How will the youth now become in the future, without the capacity to see beauty and high ideals,and not only pursue the instincts or lusts?
Before proceeding, let me say that I love _The Sound of Music_ [full disclosure: my mother attempted to teach me to sing —in tune— with the "Do-Re-Me" song]. Nevertheless, I can't watch _The Sound of Music_ without the creepy feeling that the movie is in part an apology of Austria's role in the Anschluss. To me much of third act, e.g., Captain von Trapp's exchange with Rolf in the abbey cemetery, seems sort of a singing exposition of the _Erste-Opfer-Theorie_, the position that Austria was the unwilling first victim of Nazi aggression. Maybe that is why the von Trapp family eventually settled in the United States?