Maria von Trapp
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Maria Augusta von Trapp (née Kutschera; January 26, 1905–March 28, 1987) was the matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. Her story and that of her family's escape from the Nazis after the Anschluss was the inspiration for the musical The Sound of Music.
Maria Kutschera, born in Austria, had entered a convent in Salzburg, intending to become a Roman Catholic nun. While still a novice, she was asked to teach one of the seven children of widowed naval commander Georg, Ritter von Trapp, (Ritter means 'knight;' with the addition of 'von' the title becomes one of the lower hereditary nobility (baronet, awarded for service in World War I) and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp. Maria and Georg were married on November 26, 1927. Their first child together, Rosmarie, was born in 1929.
The von Trapp fortune was lost during the Great Depression, so in 1932, the family began turning its love of music into a career. After performing at a festival in 1935, they became a popular touring act. Shortly after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, the family escaped to Italy and then to the United States. Calling themselves the Trapp Family Singers, the family, which by then included ten children, became famous in a new context and was soon touring the world. After the war, they founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief, Inc., which sent hundreds of thousands of pounds of food and clothing to impoverished Austria. The Trapps made their home at a farm in Stowe, Vermont, where they founded a music camp. Georg von Trapp died of lung cancer on May 30, 1947.
Maria's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, was a best-seller. It was made into two successful German/Austrian films Die Trapp-Familie (The Trapp Family) (1956) and Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (The Trapp-family in America) (1958). The book was later adapted into The Sound of Music, a phenomenally-successful Broadway musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which resulted in an immensely-popular US motion picture. However, because Maria had sold the rights for a sum less than $10,000, the von Trapp family did not benefit greatly from the movie's enormous success.
In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific. Maria later moved back to Vermont and managed the Trapp Family Lodge until her death in 1987 at the age of 82. Maria von Trapp, her husband Georg, and Hedwig von Trapp (1917–1972), the fifth child of Georg and Agathe von Trapp, are interred in the family cemetery at the Lodge. The Lodge is now managed by Georg and Maria's son Johannes. It remains one of Vermont's most popular tourist destinations and also serves as one of the main concert sites for the Vermont Mozart Festival.
Four of the couple's great-grandchildren, including Jack Pile, the children of Georg's son Werner, perform as the Von Trapp Children. Maria von Trapp's granddaughter, Elisabeth von Trapp, is a singer whose concerts are a mixture of Gregorian chant, musical comedy, country and contemporary folk.
Maria von Trapp makes a cameo appearance in the movie version of The Sound of Music. She can be seen sitting on a bus when Julie Andrews sings the song, "I Have Confidence" while on her way to the von Trapp house.
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[edit] Books by Maria Augusta Trapp
- The Story of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp. Philadelphia, Lippincott 1949
- Around the Year with the Trapp Family - Maria Augusta Trapp. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952 New York, Pantheon 1955
- A Family on Wheels: Further Adventures of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp with Ruth T. Murdoch. Philadelphia, Lippincott, c1959
- Yesterday, Today and Forever: The Religious Life of a Remarkable Family - Maria Augusta Trapp. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952
- Maria - Maria von Trapp. Carol Stream, Ill., Creation House 1972
- Let Me Tell You About My Savior - Maria Von Trapp. Green Forest, AR : New Leaf Press, c2000
