The Sound of Music

The Sound Of Music - North American Tour: "The Sound Of Music"
We went to see a live production of The Sound of Music at Keller auditorium last night. It was great, I really enjoyed it, perhaps because I recognized most of the songs, or maybe because the songs are simple enough to appeal to my musically stunted brain. Whatever. And I'm not the only one. The movie came out in 1965 and sold almost 300 million tickets, and that's when there were only 3 billion people on the planet.

I sort of remembered the story. I don't actually remember seeing the film, but I have seen enough bits and pieces of it over the years and now I have a pretty good grasp of it. In the show the story seems to take place over a matter of days. In reality, because there is a real-life basis to this story, it took twelve years.

Baron Georg von Trapp and Maria Augusta Kutschera

Timeline - Paraphrased from Central City Opera Festival Blog
1880 - Georg von Trapp born
1905 - Maria Augusta Kutschera born
1924 - Maria enters convent
1926 - Maria is sent to von Trapps, she 21, just four years older than eldest son
1927 March  - Princess Yvonne arrives (a distant relative of Georg’s first wife)
1927 May - von Trapp calls off proposal to Yvonne; proposes to Maria
1927 November 26,  - Wedding
1933 - von Trapps lose money investing in Austrian banks, began to take in boarders
1935  - Father Wasner comes to villa, becomes choral manager
1936  - von Trapp family begin performing concerts
1937 - First European tour
1938 March - Anschluss, the Nazi occupation of Austria
1938 May - Nazis notice they’re not hanging flags
1938 June - Decline Germans three times in one week, Escape in broad daylight on train to Italy
1956 - The Trapp Family,  a West German film is released
1958 - Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika, the sequel
1959 - original Broadway production of this musical
1961 - musical opens in London
1965 - The Sound of Music movie is released

There is one scene where the family is giving a concert and the backdrop is four enormous red Nazi banners. Captain von Trapp has already made known his opposition to the Nazis, so this is not the happiest moment, but the kids are troopers and they sing their song.

As a bonus, because I wondered what the Anschluss was, I found out where the Sudetenland is. Turns out it is not one place, it is scattered all over. Which is probably why I never knew, no one else did either.

The percentage of the German population in Czechoslovakia according to the census of 1930

The Sudetenland is the name for areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans.