The singers of the von Trapp family, arguably one of the most iconic families in film history, were an organization formed from the family of former Austrian Navy commander Georg von Trapp (1880-1947), one of the most decorated Austrian naval members. World War II officials, and who, as commander of U-boats, sank 11 Allied merchant ships and two Allied warships. The family biography was the basis for a memoir of the family matriarch, Maria von Trapp, as well as the landmark Broadway musical and film, The Sound of Music (1965).
While a naval cadet, Georg visited Eretz Israel and visited all the biblical sites he had learned about as a child. Among other things, he bought seven bottles of Jordanian water which were later used to baptize his first seven children through his first wife, Agathe Whitehead. Four years after Agatha’s death in 1922, Georg hired Maria Augusta Kutschera (1925-1987), a schoolteacher and long-time nun at the Benedictine Nonnberg Abbey in Salzburg, to serve as governess to the seven young people. Maria sang songs to the children to help them cope with the loss of her mother and, as shown in the film, she was the inspiration for their functioning as a musical family. On November 26, 1927 – and not after the Nazis arrived by force in 1938, as The Sound of Music erroneously presents – the 47-year-old captain married Maria, 22, with whom he had three more children. . As she wrote in her autobiography, she wanted to be a nun, but then she was not in love with her husband and she only married him out of deep love for her children. (The number, names and gender of the young people have been replaced in the film. )
As part of their mandatory training, all German naval cadets learned to play a musical instrument and Georg became a violinist. Unlike the first part of The Sound of Music, the family was already musically oriented long before Maria’s arrival and Georg was actually a tender and affectionate father who enjoyed musical activities with his family. The film’s depiction of a distant, cold-blooded patriarch who disapproved of music was a source of great misery for the family; Maria had sold the film rights to her book to a West German film company for a song (pardon the pun), and as a result, the von Trapps benefited little from The Sound of Music’s good fortune. and had practically no participation. in the film’s narrative. The German corporation released a musical drama, Die Trapp Familie, in 1956, and a sequel, The Trapp Family in America in 1958, before Rogers and Hammerstein turned it into a Broadway musical in 1959, with 1,443 performances. Array The movie, which won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture (1966), was released in 1965.
The von Trapps began performing publicly in 1935 and the family achieved popularity abroad after winning first prize at the prestigious Salzburg Singing Competition in 1936. They toured Europe with great success, but after the Anschluss of 1938, several things guided the circle of their relatives fleeing Austria, including, according to some critics, their classmates’ hostility toward Jewish children. However, what was undoubtedly decisive in his rejection of Hitler was the offer of a post in the German army after the Anschluss; As one of Austria’s wonderful patriots, the Nazis saw his service in the army as a great propaganda coup, and no one refused such an important honor from the Führer. In addition, he refused to fly the Nazi flag over his relatives’ home and turned down an offer to perform on one occasion in honor of Hitler’s birthday; Handwriting about the fate of the circle of relatives under the Nazi regime is displayed prominently on the wall.
The family did not set off on foot across the Austrian Alps to Switzerland (a geographical manoeuvre) as the film’s ending dramatically shows, but through an exercise adventure into Italy, of which Georg was a citizen. From Italy, the family of relatives, in monetary difficulties (they had lost their fortune in the collapse of the Austrian banks in 1935), made their way to the United States, where they applied for prestige in immigration on September 7, 1939 and settled in New York City. Ironically, von Trapp’s deserted space has become Heinrich Himmler’s headquarters.
Maria wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, an account of the creation of a song between family members, published in 1949 and which inspired the 1956 West German film, The Trapp Family, which in turn fueled the hit musical Rodgers and Hammerstein on Broadway in 1959, The Sound of Music, and then its 1965 film adaptation starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which at the time was the highest-grossing film of all time. Although the story is a dramatic story about human suffering and the extraordinary life of a circle of relatives in a time of intense political challenges and changes, The Sound of Music, a huge foreign hit, is considered frivolous and offensive. Great animated film of national pride in Austria and the film was never released in theaters in that country. As expected, the film did not earn well in Germany either. Additionally, the head of 20th Century Fox’s Munich affiliate approved (without permission) a trade edit of the film’s third act in which most of Maria’s post-marriage story is cut; This edition, which was shown in German cinemas when the film was released, eventually replaced the original cut when (Jewish) director Robert Wise discovered the change.
The sound of the music is largely paintings of Jews, adding composer Richard Rogers, lyricist and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and director Robert Wise, who won the Academy Award for Best Director (and Theodor Bikel the first Captain von Trapp on Broadway). However, many commentators point out the obvious incongruity of a biography and a film that is necessarily an anti-Nazi narrative set in Austria at the beginning of the Holocaust and that necessarily mitigates the Nazi threat; He makes no mention of the Jews; it does not paint the Nazis as anti-Semites; and it doesn’t feature any Jewish characters.
Some recommend that “Uncle Max” (a completely fictional character, a businessman who does not appear in Maria’s biography) pretends to be Jewish, but there is no evidence for this theory, especially given his simple friendship with the Nazis; In any case, if Max Detweiler were Jewish, he would be little more than an anti-Semitic stereotype of the opportunistic, greedy, money-hungry Jew. Some also recommend that “Professor Kohner,” the owner of the off-screen toy store, who, at Max’s request, sells his puppet theater to von Tropp’s circle of relatives they use for the famous Lone Goatherd number, is Jewish but, again, there is simply nothing to this proposal.
Moreover, while Georg’s outspoken opposition to Nazism is a major theme of the film, nowhere do we see him opposing anti-Semitism, militarism, or authoritarianism; rather, his opposition to the Nazis was based on his misery in the face of the risk Nazi Germany posed to Austria’s autonomy. As one critic rightly noted: “Of course, no one calls for the Holocaust with music, but the film goes so far in the other direction, that the Nazis’ greatest genuine danger turns out to be to make von Trapp’s young Austrians sing. The worst musical arrangement in the movie. Perhaps all this bureaucracy is the basis of some commentators’ desperate and frantic attempts to locate Jewish characters and narratives where there are none.
The faith of von Trapp’s circle of relatives is the subject of discussion among critics, with some claiming they were Jewish. For example, according to Chicago’s Lawndale News on February 27, 2014, “When Germany invaded and occupied Austria in 1938, the Nazis began persecuting all Austrian Jews. The von Trapps, being Jews, fled Austria to Italy before the Nazis could intern them in a concentration camp or kill them. “
There are several arguments that support the theory that the family might have been Jewish, but none hold up even as a whole: the family was wealthy and had a successful business. “von Tropp” was a common Jewish surname, and they fled the Nazis. Array “Maria” was “Miriam”, whose parents – who are never mentioned, let alone known (possibly already kidnapped by the Nazis) – protected their Jewish daughter from the Nazis by sending her to a convent in the United States. community of the local shtetl, in the same way as many other desperate Jewish parents at the time. As columnist Danny Miller argues, probably with the greatest irony, when nuns sing “How do you solve a problem like Mary?”evoke the “Jewish challenge” of Nazi rhetoric; In fact, the initial theme of the musical and film is that she had no place among the solemn and sober nuns, as she breaks all the rules of the convent, dancing and singing in the beautiful Austrian mountains and, more importantly, skipping mass. . Formation
When Maria/Miriam sings to Commander von Trapp “Because here you are, you love me, whether you deserve it or not,” could she simply be referring to the Nuremberg Laws, according to which Aryans were forbidden to marry Jews on pain of death?And while some nuns, particularly the Reverend Mother, were sympathetic and compassionate, like many righteous pagans who helped hide the Holocaust from Jews, others were obviously anti-Semitic, Sister Berthe added, which evoked photographs of anti-Semitism on the part of Jews. . Middle Ages calling Mary/Miriam a “demon”.
In fact, it is well known that von Trapp’s family circle was entirely Christian. Although Maria was raised by an atheist, socialist uncle after her mother died when she was two, her ideals changed when she heard the preaching from a well. He knew a Jesuit priest and aspired to be a Benedictine, but after Georg married Maria, his whole family became Catholic.
Many members of the von Trapp family had participated and had fond memories of the “Sing Weeks” in Austria, which introduced music education to the general public. When the family immigrated to the U. S. , they brought that experience with them. , and after settling in Stowe, Vermont, they hosted their own annual summer camp for a few weeks as summer camp. During the Christmas holidays of 1943, they discovered an old abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camp near the family farm, which they believed would be a suitable post to celebrate Sing Weeks. After obtaining a ten-year lease for the Vermont State Camp in May 1944, the circle of relatives renovated the camp’s old barracks and renamed them after prominent composers (Schubert Hall, Haydn Hall, Beethoven Hall, Mozart Hall, Bach Hall, and Stephen Foster). Hall), and then organized 4 sessions of the 10-day Singing Week from 1944 to 1956.
To publicize the inaugural event of the Trapp Family Music Camp, nicknamed “Little Austria,” the organization produced flyers, placed ads in newspapers, and made announcements at the end of each of the tour’s performances. The first Trapp Family Music Camp opened on July 10. , 1944, presided over by Vermont Governor William Henry Wills. There were about 400 participants in the camp that first summer, and within a year, the camp had become a nationally identified summer music teaching center.
Each member of the circle of relatives played various musical roles that contributed to the good fortune of the camp, including singing training, folk dance, and recorder, as well as all facets of running a camp, adding meal preparation, dishes, making beds, and laundry. The ambitious itinerary began with a morning chapel and included breakfast, choral lessons, lunch, free time for walking, swimming, and berry picking, followed by recorder lessons, singing, folk dancing, dinner, storytelling, crafts, and then spinning. He turned off the lights at 10 p. m. During the 11 years the family ran the camp, thousands of people participated, including young and old from diverse backgrounds, including Jewish children, as we’ll see.
The camp was discontinued after the summer of 1956, when the family began to explore new avenues for their creativity, religious activities, and hospitality. The Trapp Family Singers disbanded in 1957 and the family eventually built a hotel and ski hotel in Stowe, which have become a popular tourist attraction. The 2,500-acre Von Trapp Family Lodge offers 96 rooms and is a perfect alpine lodge with the perfect indoor and outdoor hotel amenities.
On August 15, 1944, in the camp’s inaugural season, Josephine Cohen, sister of camper Lucille Cohen, sent a letter complaining about the camp to City Hall concert director Kenneth Klein, with a carbon copy sent to Maria. In the correspondence of August 21, 1944 Exposed here and written on the stationery of the Trapp Family Music Camp, Mary writes to Alix Williamson, publicist for the Trapp Family Singers:
The only user I had problems with, I’m sorry to say, was a young Jewish woman named Lucille Cohen. She adamantly refused to wear skirts. She was also very conspicuous and vulgar and used appalling language. Regardless, I asked him to leave the camp, as it wasn’t a summer hotel he was looking for anyway. Today, his sister, Josephine Cohen, spits venom. I enclose a copy of one of your letters and let you make up your mind about what you think is obligatory to do about it. I tried to talk to Lucille and begged her to abide by the regulations because I knew everyone would say, “Of course, Jews,” and I explained my position opposing all the warnings in our neighborhood. But I don’t think she was smart enough to understand what he meant.
However, I am content to tell you that in each elegance we have between ten and fifteen Jews and that everything has been in complete harmony.
In his reply to “Baroness Georg von Trapp”, Williamson advises Mary to forget about the problem and then adds:
I am sorry that you have had problems with Lucille Cohen, but I think it is a shame that your devout denomination should be consulted in this regard. After all, he’s just one user who turned out to be nasty, and you know there are many who belong to all religions, so I don’t see why that deserves to come into the picture. As for how to deal with the problem, I think it would be wise to forget about it altogether. His sister is said to be in poor health and is an annoying person by nature, and I’m sure the other people he contacts will have to know about it, so he can’t really hurt you. After all, there are about 500 more people there, and if all of them, unless Lucille Cohen is satisfied, I don’t see why her particular experience deserves a job opposite to the good luck of the camp. I would recommend the full incident.
Reading between the lines of Williamson’s missive, Maria’s anti-Semitic animosity is evident, as she focused on Lucille Cohen as a Jew rather than the bad habit of an unmarried camp participant. Williamson, who was Jewish, kindly clarifies the irrelevance of Lucille’s “religious” attitude. denomination. “
Williamson (1916-2001), American publicist who specialized in selling musical artists in the United States and abroad, adding the New York Philharmonic for 15 years, the Juilliard String Quartet for 23 years, and the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Center for 22 years. . years. She was press agent for pianist André Watts for 15 years, press secretary for Richard Tucker for 15 years, and publicist for the Trapp Family Singers for more than two decades. It was she who suggested to Mary to tell her life story in a book. who have become The History of the Trapp Family Singers and encouraged The Sound of Rodgers’ Music
On the other hand, when Maria’s eldest son, Rupert Georg von Trapp, was presented with a position as a doctor in Vienna in 1938, he refused after learning that the Nazis had taken the task away from a Jewish doctor. He later enlisted in the U. S. Army and earned a World War II Bronze Star.
Finally, another notable and unknown “Jewish angle” in the story: the famous opening number in which Julie Andrews frolics among the hills “alive to the sound of music” was filmed partly from the air, and the filmmakers became increasingly concerned when it was shot down by the helicopter’s strong gusts. The production team was hampered in their attempts to take their apparatus into the mountains until they found an unused road, which had been built to send Jewish prisoners to a local concentration camp.
Printed from: https://www. jewishpress. com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/maria-von-tropp-and-the-sound-of-music-the-jewish-angle/2024/03 /13/