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Maria Augusta von Trapp (26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987), also known as Baroness Maria von Trapp, was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers.[2][3] Her story served as the inspiration for a 1956 German film that in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music.
She was born on 26 January 1905 aboard a train heading from her parents' village in Tyrol to a hospital in Vienna, Austria.[4] She was an orphan by her seventh birthday and graduated from the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna at age 18, in 1923.[5] She entered Nonnberg Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg, int
Maria Augusta von Trapp (26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987), also known as Baroness Maria von Trapp, was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers.[2][3] Her story served as the inspiration for a 1956 German film that in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music.
She was born on 26 January 1905 aboard a train heading from her parents' village in Tyrol to a hospital in Vienna, Austria.[4] She was an orphan by her seventh birthday and graduated from the State Teachers College for Progressive Education in Vienna at age 18, in 1923.[5] She entered Nonnberg Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg, intending to become a nun.[6] While still a school teacher there, she was asked to teach one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg Ludwig von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, who had died from scarlet fever. Maria and Georg decided to marry; the marriage took place on 26 November 1927.[1][4] According to U.S. immigration documents filed by Maria in 1948, this would have been just 2 months before the birth of their daughter Rosmarie in February 1928. Rosmarie and the rest of the Trapp family maintain that her correct birth year is 1929.
In 1935, Trapp lost his money, which had been safely invested in a bank in London. The Captain, to help a friend in the banking business named Mrs. Lammer, had withdrawn the money from the English bank and deposited it in Mrs. Lammer's bank, which soon failed. Austria had been experiencing economic difficulties during The Great Depression.[1]
To survive, the Trapps sent away most of their servants, moved into the top floor of their home, and rented the empty rooms to students of the Catholic University. The Archbishop sent Father Franz Wasner to stay with them as their chaplain and they started singing.
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.[7]
After performing at a festival in 1935, they became a popular touring act. Shortly before the German annexation of Austria in 1938, the family traveled to Italy and then to the United States for a concert tour, and their home was confiscated by the Nazis.[8]
Initially calling themselves the "Trapp Family Choir", the von Trapps began to perform in the United States and Canada. They performed in New York City at The Town Hall on 10 December 1938.[4][7][9][10] The New York Times wrote:
There was something unusually lovable and appealing about the modest, serious singers of this little family aggregation as they formed a close semicircle about their self-effacing director for their initial offering, the handsome Mme. von Trapp in simple black, and the youthful sisters garbed in black and white Austrian folk costumes enlivened with red ribbons. It was only natural to expect work of exceeding refinement from them, and one was not disappointed in this.[4][10]
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".[8] The family, which by then included ten children, was soon touring the world giving concert performances.[4] 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 tonnes of 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 and her stepdaughters Johanna, Martina, Maria, Hedwig, and Agathe applied for U.S. citizenship. Georg never applied to become a citizen. Rupert and Werner became citizens by serving during World War II. Rosmarie and Eleonore became citizens by virtue of their mother's citizenship. Johannes was born in the United States in September 1939 during a concert tour in Philadelphia.[1]
Georg von Trapp died in 1947 in Vermont from lung cancer.
The Trapp family made a series of 78 rpm discs 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. The family also made an appearance on an Elvis Presley Christmas record. In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific.
In the mid-1960s Maria moved back to Vermont to manage the Trapp Family Lodge. In the 1960s, Maria began to turn over management of the Lodge to her son, Johannes von Trapp, although, at first, she was reluctant to do so.
Maria von Trapp died of heart failure on 28 March 1987, in Morrisville, Vermont, three days after a surgery.[4] She had outlived her husband by forty years, he having died before the book, musical, and films appeared. Maria, her husband Georg, Hedwig von Trapp, and Martina von Trapp are interred in the family cemetery at the Lodge.
The book was later adapted into The Sound of Music, the successful Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which resulted in a popular U.S. motion picture. The Sound of Music, with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway in the fall of 1959, starring Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. It was a success, running for more than three years. The film version set box office records, and she received about $500,000 ($3.8 million today) in royalties.[4] Maria von Trapp makes a cameo appearance in the movie version of The Sound of Music. For an instant, she, her daughter Rosmarie, and Werner's daughter Barbara can be seen walking past an archway during the song, "I Have Confidence", at the line, "I must stop these doubts, all these worries/If I don't, I just know I'll turn back."[14] Maria Von Trapp sang "Edelweiss" with Julie Andrews on The Julie Andrews Hour in 1973.
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