Climbed Every Mountain - The Story Behind the Sound of Music

SOARING MUSIC PLAYS

# The hills are alive with the sound of music

# With songs... #

The Sound Of Music is the most popular film musical of all time.

It was made nearly 50 years ago and is still loved by the whole world.

AUDIENCE SINGS ALONG: # With the sound of music... #

The story of a singing nun who mends a broken family through song

seems to speak to everybody.

APPLAUSE

The Sound Of Music, which is fabulous.

I like Julie Andrews.

-You love Julie Andrews.

-Yes.

When the bee stings!

I used to host Sound Of Music nights like this one

and I've always wondered, what is the secret of its universal appeal?

Is it the mountain vistas?

Is it the yodelling?

# Yodel le, yodel le, yodel le hee hoo! #

CLEARS THROAT

Is it the costumes?

SHE PURRS

Is it the marionettes?

I'm assuming this is a costume.

And are you a fan of the film?

-I love it.

-There's a soft side. He does like the popcorn.

-IN A GERMAN ACCENT: Ja, I like zee popcorn.

-You're a collaborator.

I am a collaborator.

Singing "high on the hill was a lonely goatherd."

SIGHS HAPPILY

It is very important when playing at Julie Andrews to spin left-to-right.

Right-to-left, you'll turn into Wonder Woman. Just a tip.

I've come to Salzburg, where the film is set, to find out

about the Sound Of Music phenomenon and the story that inspired it.

I'm also curious to know why, until now, the people of Salzburg

have turned their backs on the story that is based here.

Some are even casting doubt on the accuracy of Maria von Trapp's story.

She wants to create her own reality.

She's always presenting the best way of family life you ever can imagine.

And that's the picture she wants to create.

So essentially she's fictionalising her life

-way before Hollywood fictionalises it.

-Yes, it is.

It's really her personal fiction.

I think she did play up to a myth that was about her.

I think she enjoyed the...

Oh, Maria von Trapp is here.

I think she rather liked that.

Our story has been told

so many times that you begin to confuse reality and fiction.

Let's see now, which version is this?

The legend of Maria von Trapp began with her 1949 autobiography.

It became a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical in 1959

and was immortalised on celluloid

when Hollywood arrived in Salzburg in 1964,

and used the Baroque beauty of the city as a ravishing backdrop.

It is so spectacularly, fantastically beautiful

that even my four eyes can't drink it in.

Of course, Salzburg's most famous son is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,

and there's Mozart branding everywhere - on chocolate,

on stationery, on underpants, on tea towels - you name it.

There's an airport named after him.

And also, as you can see, a supermarket underneath his house.

Which of course inspired his most beautiful work, Cosi fan Tesco.

Bizarrely, though,

it's the one place on earth that doesn't like The Sound Of Music.

I've no idea why the Austrians

simply haven't taken to The Sound Of Music.

It's possibly just a little too sugary for their taste.

So, what do the good burghers of Salzburg

think of The Sound Of Music?

Salzburgers really do not love the film.

They see that the Villa von Trapp is not the original one.

They see that Salzburgers are presented all as Nazis

and it's not dealing with reality.

-The musical from the von Trapps?

-No, no.

Ah, OK. Never mind, thank you.

-Do you know The Sound Of Music?

-No.

-Never seen it?

-I've never seen it.

-Do you know who Julie Andrews is?

-No.

LAUGHS

Brilliant, thank you.

Edelweiss is not an Austrian song.

When I came to the United States and my host family sang it to me

expecting me to join in, they were really disappointed

because I couldn't.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

SONG: "Edelweiss"

She doesn't... Doesn't.

Even when the historic Salzburg marionette theatre was asked

to take part in the film, they snootily refused.

They asked us to make the puppet scenes

and to show the actors how to handle the puppets.

I really think it was the biggest mistake.

Did you say no?

-But they said no.

-Why did... Do we know why they said no?

-Yes.

They just thought it's singing nuns... It's Nazis, no.

They thought it's too American, something like that.

In Salzburg itself,

a lot of people have neither seen the movie nor the musical.

But then we see that a lot of people coming to Salzburg

just because of The Sound Of Music.

300,000 people every year come to Salzburg

because of Sound Of Music.

It's forming our image in the whole world

but weselves don't know this musical.

SINGING: # Doe, a deer, a female deer

# Ray, a drop of golden sun... #

And here these 300,000 pilgrims find paradise.

# Far, a long, long way to run

# Sew, a needle pulling thread

# La, a note to follow Sew

# Tea, a drink with jam and bread

# That will bring us back to Doe

# Doe, doe. #

-How many times do you think you've seen it?

-Oh, about...

-Loads, I can't count, just loads.

-More than once a year?

-I watched it on Tuesday.

-You saw it last week.

-I did, I watched it...

-Last week was a refresher, to top it up.

-It was, it was lovely, yeah.

-Hi.

-Hi, there.

-I'm Athena.

-Athena, and...

-Maria.

-Of course, what else?

-And where are you from, Maria?

-Colombia.

-And where are you from?

-I'm from the Philippines.

-Yet united by The Sound Of Music.

What do you love about it, how does it make you feel when you watch it?

Oh, it makes me feel young. It's imagination.

-16 going on 17?

-Yes!

# I am 16 going on 17, I know that I'm naive

# Fellows I meet may tell me I'm sweet and willingly I believe

# I am 16 going on 17... #

The Sound Of Music connects us all to our childhood,

and it works its magic across all cultures.

# ..What do I know of those? #

-Do means doughnut in Japanese.

-Really?

-Yes.

Doughnut, a deer, a female deer. Is that what it translates?

-Yes, so Do is doughnut.

-What does Re mean in Japanese?

-Re is lemon.

This is very good.

# Do wa donatsu no do

# Le wa lemon no le

# Mi wa minna no mi

# Fa wa faito no fa

# So wa aoisola... Blue sky

# La wa lappa no la

PRETENDS TO BLOW A TRUMPET

-# Si wa siawase yo

-Lucky!

# Sa utaima sho

-# Bring us back to Do, Do, doughnut! #

-Yes.

After ignoring The Sound Of Music for so long,

the people of Salzburg are now gearing up for the first ever

production of the musical in the city.

It has been 73 years since the von Trapp family left Salzburg.

That is quite a time.

I think the time was just... We're ready to do it now.

Five, six, seven eight. >

SONG (IN GERMAN): "So Long, Farewell"

One, two, three, four.

Nice!

Nicholas Hammond played Friedrich in the film.

He is Sound Of Music royalty

and has dropped in on the rehearsals.

ALL: # Adieu! #

-What's your name?

-Isabella.

-Isabella. And you'll be playing Brigitta.

-Yes.

-And what is your name?

-Christina.

-And you're playing Gretel?

-Rosalie.

Rosalie. And, boys, Kurt and Friedrich, right?

And you know, once you've been a von Trapp you're a von Trapp forever.

You stay in the family forever.

SONG: "My Favourite Things"

Nicholas has been caught up in The Sound Of Music

fairytale for most of his life.

There's a part of him that will always be Friedrich von Trapp.

Perhaps he can unlock the mystery of the story's enduring appeal.

My feeling about being in the movie was,

it's pretty rare to have basically

your entire life spent having people

come up to you and thank you for the film and what it has meant to them.

I'm sorry about that, I felt I should have introduced myself

in a slightly more august way. Yeah.

And I'm still waiting for your thank you.

I'm sure it will come eventually.

It's a thanks I won't be verbalising,

but just trust me, it's there.

-It's always there.

-You'll find a way to show me.

-I will.

So this is it, the arbour where you performed bits of Do-Re-Mi.

This is it, this is where Julie Andrews

does the great, big gesture and I run right past.

Go on, Sue, now's your chance, right now.

-So it sort of jazz hands and then you do 100 metres?

-That's right.

-Be Maria - go on!

-I'm ready.

Oh! I'm ready, Friedrich! I'll race you!

Oh, you've still got some pep, haven't you?!

-So this bit requires a hitch kick. Show me how it's done.

-Like this.

That's it. It's just hitch kick.

'Well, Nicholas has certainly still got all those moves.'

And then it's... # That will bring us back to

# So, Do, La, Fa, Mi, Do, Re. #

Then when we do the next one, it's...

# So, Do, La, Fa, Mi, Do, Re

# So, Do, La, Ti, Do, Re, Do! #

So, Fa. Six more months' rehearsal?

-Yeah.

-We'll have this.

Dye that hair blonde. Learn how to sing, lose a couple of stone.

Boom.

Nicholas was keen to show me his Sound Of Music scrapbook.

There you are, Nicholas Hammond. Friedrich!

Oh, this is when we just won, this picture.

Oh, you threw that in! "Oh, that was the time we just..." Yeah.

And this is the telegram my agent sent my mother.

Because we were off on a skiing holiday. You can see the date.

-It's New Year's Eve.

-Yeah.

"Can Nicholas be in New York, Friday, January 3rd,

"for a meeting with casting director for Sound Of Music? Call me."

-So that was...

-That's a great telegram!

-That's right.

-Oh, yes. Here we go.

-Here we go.

-Here come the photos.

What a handsome lad! Look at you there!

Oh, thank you.

-So there you are, 13 going on 14.

-I am. What did she write?

"For Nicky, with love from Julie Andrews."

-That's Maria von Trapp.

-So you met Maria von Trapp on set?

-I did.

She actually plays an extra in the film.

And as you can see, she's come ready to work in her traditional dirndl.

And in the scene where Julie Andrews is singing "I Have Confidence"

on her way to the house the first time,

if you look at the film again, there is an older Austrian lady

who walks behind her and it is Maria von Trapp.

# ..If I don't, I just know I'll turn back... #

There's something about being able to look at this family on film,

where a woman drops out of the sky, magically makes their father happy,

makes the children happy, gives them all a purpose.

And with great courage, they overcome a tyrannical dictator

and go on to a happy, wonderful life. That's the story in the film.

And I think there's something about that story that everybody wants to believe.

So how true is the story?

Were the von Trapps the perfect family in real life?

And who was Maria?

She writes in her autobiography that she was born on a train

bound for Vienna in 1905, and given the name Maria Augusta Kutschera.

She was orphaned at the age of nine and raised by foster parents

and then by an uncle, who treated her badly.

As a teenager, she was part of a youth organisation

which promoted hiking and Austrian folk traditions.

Whilst walking in the Alps, she experienced a divine revelation.

I had suggested that we go into the Alps, into the High Alps,

where the snow mountains are.

And suddenly it occurred to me, "All this, God gives to me.

"What can I give him?" And there at that moment

I got the idea, "Well, there is nothing better, I give that back.

"Beautiful as it is." And I decided to go into a convent,

which has perpetual enclosure.

And I went to the Benedictine Abbey of Nonnberg.

Founded in the year 713,

Nonnberg Nunnery is the oldest nunnery in the world.

Maria was destined for a life of contemplation and prayer.

Ah!

Dear Lord, grant me buns of steel,

that I might be able to make my way up this incline!

So, this is the Nonnberg Nunnery that Maria entered in 1924,

after a mountain-top conversion.

I don't know if they let lapsed Catholics like myself in,

but we'll see. If you see smoke, you'll know it's all gone wrong.

Maria claims the nuns found her too coarse and unruly

for life in a convent.

I was wild in that time, you see. I had no manners.

I had... I was more a boy than a girl.

And for some reason, the nuns were glad to see the back of her.

Well, it turns out when it comes to Maria von Trapp,

that is definitely a silent order. It's a shame.

What is this, Nuns On The Run? Sister, excuse me! Sister! Sister!

Ooh!

The nuns had other plans for Maria and in 1926, at the age of 21,

she was sent to be a teacher at the home of a widowed naval officer,

Baron von Trapp.

When I turned around and there's this tall gentleman standing behind me,

who just made a slight bow towards me, took out a boatman's whistle,

and blew signals on it.

Each one of the children - finally I, too, later -

had its signal.

Lisa.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Friedrich.

-WHISTLE BLOWS

-Louisa.

-WHISTLE BLOWS

-Kurt.

-WHISTLE BLOWS

-Brigitta.

-WHISTLE BLOWS

-Marta.

WHISTLE BLOWS

WHISTLE BLOWS AGAIN

Seven children, from four to 14. We just plain loved one another.

I liked those little ones very much.

It was the first time in my life that I was being kissed.

See, I was an orphan.

I was brought up by an elderly lady, a cousin of my father's.

And there was no kissing being done in that house.

And I grew up without. And these little kids, they were all over me.

And it was such a warm and new experience.

Georg von Trapp had been a U-boat commander during World War I.

He was a hero of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,

and he was 25 years older than Maria.

His whole life was being a captain. He was very good at it.

And all of a sudden,

he loses his job and the possibility of any job,

because Austria lost not only the war, but her coastline.

And he suddenly is thrust into unemployment

and a return to a devastated country.

A few years later, his wife passed away and suddenly

he's faced with seven children

and an enormous amount of loss to cope with.

I'm not sure he ever recovered from that fully.

-Well...

-Well, show me the berries you picked, come on.

We don't have them any more.

In The Sound Of Music, the Captain is depicted as a stern father,

out of touch with his emotions. In reality, he was warm and loving.

Maria was the one who needed to have her heart melted.

Since you've obviously stuffed yourselves full

of thousands of delicious berries, you can't be hungry any more,

so I'll just have to simply tell Frau Schmidt to skip your dinner!

They were married in 1928.

It sounded like the children did the running back and forth

between them, to kind of determine that my grandfather

was going to marry her. As I recall, my grandmother's story

is that she's standing on a stepladder, polishing a chandelier,

or light bulbs or something, when the children come running in

and say, "Papa says he'll marry you."

And, you know, that's not exactly a proposal that you get

out in the garden, the way, you know, it's sort of portrayed

in the film.

They didn't sing, and I was singing all the time.

And I couldn't understand this, so I had a guitar,

and it's the first thing we did, just we started singing.

# Let's start at the very beginning... #

In the movie, Julie Andrews teaches the children to sing,

and within the space of one song, they've got the hang of it.

A, B, C.

# When you sing you begin with do-re-mi!

# Do, re, mi! #

Achtung!

In the German version of the von Trapp story -

yes, there's a German version too -

the children are whipped into shape by a young priest, Father Wasner.

This is what happened in reality.

And Father Wasner became the family's musical director in 1935.

Nein, nein, fiske A. Fiske A.

SINGING

The von Trapp Singers did not sing magical Rogers and Hammerstein songs

such as "Do Re Mi" or "My Favourite Things".

They sang austere, sacred music, as well as Alpine melodies.

They had a successful singing career in Austria and Germany

in the 1930s at a time when folk traditions

were having a popular revival.

This is overlooked in The Sound Of Music

but depicted faithfully in the trusty German version.

THEY SING IN GERMAN

The von Trapp Family Singers were winning folk festivals

all over Europe when, in 1938,

Adolf Hitler annexed Austria and put the family in a moral quandary.

We were so...desirable

that we were asked to sing for Hitler's birthday

and we said, "No, thank you very much, but no."

And you cannot say no and stay. So that was a clue for us to go.

And the first prize, the highest honour in all Austria,

to the von Trapp Family Singers.

APPLAUSE

They're gone!

BELL TOLLS

Baron von Trapp was a proud Austrian

and would have nothing to do with the German occupiers.

This is the part of The Sound Of Music which Austrians have trouble with

because of their involvement with the Nazis during World War II.

Marko Feingold, believe it or not, is almost 100.

His life's mission is to remind Salzburgers

of their collaboration with the Nazis.

They say you're 98 years old, it's not possible!

-Alles ist moglich.

-Alles ist moglich.

SPEAKS GERMAN:

So, do you think the Austrians have come to terms with their past?

The Salzburg premiere of The Sound Of Music

faces the Nazi question full on.

For my generation, the whole image of The Sound Of Music theme

was too much like, "I love my country",

too much like a national pride,

which we actually didn't have at that time.

We were scared to have because we were still being criticised for it

or we were scared to be criticised to be in love with our country,

in love with our traditions, and this image of this dirndl

and these leather pants and this countryside was kind of scary for me.

The topic of Nazi history is no longer a taboo

and I think the musical really helps to give an education

within a story from here to young audiences.

In the final sequence of the film, the von Trapps are seen

fleeing the Nazis by walking across the Alps to Switzerland.

In reality, the border between Austria and Switzerland

was virtually impossible to negotiate,

so the von Trapps took the far more prosaic step

of simply boarding a train to Italy.

In the film, however, they use a lot more poetic licence

and the von Trapp family happily scuttle off in this direction,

which would have been an navigational nightmare

seeing as just over there is Bertesgarten,

or Hitler's holiday home to you and me.

SHE TUTS

It's not just the geographical inaccuracies of the film

that have annoyed the Austrians.

They are now casting doubt on other aspects of Maria von Trapp's story.

Peter Husty has been researching a new exhibition on the von Trapps

to coincide with the theatre premiere.

It was really strange to go to the archives,

and to find nothing about her background. None at all.

This is unusual, because Austrians are known for good book-keeping.

-Yes.

-Why would they not have records?

It seems to be the documents are not even there today.

It seems that they got lost, but we don't know why.

Does the Nonnberg Nunnery have any records of her?

Her relationship to Nonnberg is also a little bit of a strange story

because she was not really a teacher there,

and she was not a member of the nuns.

She was there to educate the children in their free time

-in the afternoon or something like this.

-Right.

-So there's no proof that she was either a nun or a teacher?

-No, no.

We only know from the archive in Nonnberg

that she came into Nonnberg and that she left in '26 Nonnberg.

Nothing more in the papers.

So, they have records of other nuns, they don't have records of her?

-Nothing?

-Really strange.

It's a white leaflet.

-Yeah, it's a blank piece of paper. That's what we say in English.

-Yes.

# How do you solve a problem like Maria?

# How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

# How do you find a word that means Maria?

# A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! #

So, this has started off as a musical,

but increasingly it's feeling like a detective story.

It really is, how do you solve a problem like Maria?

This is a woman who has no records of her birth,

we know nothing about her mother, her father,

we've got no trace of her at the nunnery...

She's an enigma, she's a mystery, she is a will-o'-the-wisp.

Maria von Trapp was a teacher.

To begin with, she was not called Maria,

she was called Gusta - an abbreviation of Augusta.

She was teaching shorthand

and my mother had her as a teacher.

She was a very strict teacher and very religious.

My mother was religious, too, but not to that extent.

The students didn't like her very much.

She was very strict and as I said, a little bit of a religious fanatic.

The people fell in love with Julie Andrews

and not the real Maria von Trapp, because she was by far

not as charming and lovable as she is portrayed by Julie Andrews.

This is what I found out.

I mean, sometimes research can kill the story.

And who would want to kill the story when it's such an intoxicating one?

There certainly are a few question marks hanging over Maria.

So much we know is from her own autobiography.

But where's the real documentation of her life?

What's true and what's fabricated?

There are no von Trapps left in Salzburg to ask.

The family settled in Vermont a few years after leaving Austria.

It's a conundrum that I really need to solve,

so I think probably the best thing is,

much as I am loathe to leave the beer hall,

I have to up sticks and go to Vermont to meet the von Trapps

and to get a sense of who she really was.

Until then, I've got 16 litres of the foaming stuff

and a massive sausage, so excuse me.

The von Trapp family arrived at New York's Ellis Island in October 1939.

This was the processing centre for anyone hoping to gain entry

to the promised land of America.

There were now nine children and one more was on the way.

The von Trapps had work visas for a six-month concert tour,

led by Father Wasner.

But as they queued in the great hall

with the rest of the world's poor and huddled masses,

Maria nearly sabotaged the whole thing.

When asked by immigration how long they planned to remain in the US,

Maria rather candidly and naively replied,

"I hope forever!"

and was immediately detained.

Come on, Maria! It's a schoolgirl error.

These guys are tough. You need to have a mantra,

and you need to stick to it. Simply say,

"I'm here for a few days on holiday, I'm here for a few days on holiday."

CHILDREN SING IN GERMAN

While being detained,

the von Trapps won the hearts of their fellow refugees

by singing to them.

In the German film, they sing their way to freedom

in front of the Statue of Liberty and gain a new life in America.

THEY SING IN GERMAN

So, from this point on, the von Trapp family are refugees.

They've got four dollars, they couldn't even buy a pretzel,

not even in 1939, for that money.

Those street vendors were always expensive.

I think it's no small irony that the number one song of the time

was Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Glenn Miller's version,

which is in many ways a hymn to the American dream

and that's what they were experiencing

as they made this crossing.

MUSIC: "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"

We had four dollars.

SHE LAUGHS

All of us together.

It was a difficult beginning.

Simply to buy the daily food, you see,

we had to fight for every dollar.

We rented a bus and we practically lived in that bus

for six or eight months,

touring all over the country and giving concerts.

The von Trapps quickly dropped the von

and became simply the Trapp Family Singers,

and built a hugely successful career in the USA.

They adapted their repertoire for an American audience,

but still offered a wholesome family folksy experience.

They were like The Osmonds...

in lederhosen.

They had religious and semi-religious songs,

which will always appeal to a large demographic in America.

And they were just at the cusp of the American folk music movement,

which happened right...um...

sort of during and then, after World War II,

where spirituals, folk songs,

ethnically-specific music started to sort of bubble up,

past the sort of processed music of Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood.

Now, we're going to sing a hunting song,

a hunting song which is going to be sung in the spring.

It's an old folk song.

We're not only singing, we're also using our ancient instruments.

MUSIC: "Es Wollt Ein Jaegerlein Jagen"

# Es wollt ein Jaegerlein jagen

# Dreiviertel Stund vor Tagen

# Wohl in dem gruenen Wald, ja Wald

# Wohl in dem gruenen Wald

-# Halli, hallo

-Halli, hallo

# Wohl in dem gruenen Wald!

-# Halli, hallo

-Halli, hallo

# Wohl in dem gruenen Wald! #

The von Trapps are both unique in their sound

and yet, they also touched on what is, for Americans,

fundamental of what our country is,

built very much on the immigrant story.

And for the Trapps to come to America with virtually nothing,

since they were forced to leave everything behind,

and to then build up the great family that they are today

is a story that I think a lot of Americans relate to today

and certainly related to in the mid '40s, in the '50s,

coming out of the War and coming into the Post-war Era.

In 1942, the von Trapps settled in Vermont

because it reminded them of Austria,

and used their lodge as a base for their tours

as well as a venue for music camps.

Here, they created a copy of Tyrolean life in the USA.

So I'm in Vermont in the fall and it's so beautiful.

And suddenly you come across this

Austrian chalet in the middle of New England.

It's like an amusement park, it's like Schnitzel World.

And this is von Trapp Family HQ.

We're trying to take advantage...

'Sam von Trapp, Maria's grandson,

'leads history tours around the lodge.'

..and to educate our guests about agriculture,

which with our herd of Scotch Highland cattle, the grass-fed beef,

which is much more healthy than corn-fattened beef.

There's a Trapp farm,

a brewery brewing Trapp Lager,

a gift shop.

-To whom would you like me to make it out?

-Judy.

-Judy. J-U-D-Y?

-Yeah.

-OK.

And The Sound Of Music is shown every day.

OK, yeah.

My father is Johannes,

Johannes is the youngest son of Maria and the Baron.

So after they were married, they had three more children.

My father was the only one born in the United States.

But he did grow up speaking German as a first language.

There was definitely a sense

of holding The Sound Of Music at arm's length when we were kids.

I think it was coming from a sense of humility,

of not wanting to be too into the movie about our family,

but at the same time also the degree of disappointment

that our grandfather was portrayed as being so stern,

you know, our aunts and uncles, whose names had been changed,

whose birth order had been changed.

So there was somewhat of an arrogant attitude, actually,

kind of putting the movie down and the musical down.

And then, over time, and especially through leading the history tours,

talking to people and hearing their positive experiences with the movie, how much it's meant to them,

-we've really come around to making peace with the musical.

-Uh-huh.

So having seen the film,

did you recognise any of the story as your own family story

of did it just seem like a fantastical fairytale?

Um... I think it was pretty surreal.

Because you were looking at these kids in the movie

and they're great and they're fun to watch and they're singing

and then, we were thinking,

"Wait, but those kids are old, older aunts and uncles."

You know, how did they get...? And how does this work?

-Yeah.

-It was kind of surreal.

The interior of the lodge is dirndl central.

It's a shrine to all things Austrian and all things von Trapp.

The walls are covered in family photos and movie memorabilia.

I tell you, I must be getting old,

cos I've completely forgotten the name of the family

on whom The Sound Of Music was based.

And I just wished there was somewhere in this lodge

that I could be reminded.

I think it's Schmidt.

'Johannes is the patriarch of the lodge.

'He's Sam and Kristina's father and Maria's youngest child.

'He paints a sober picture of Maria von Trapp

'and life in the singing group.'

I was in a cradle at the back of the bus from birth on.

I do remember,

say, from age four on,

travelling with the family,

coming on stage and then being introduced.

# Old Macdonald had a farm

# Ee-eye, ee-eye-oh

# And on the farm He had some cows... #

-Pigs.

-Pigs.

# Ee-eye, ee-eye-oh

-# With an...

-Oink, oink here And an oink, oink there

# Here an oink, there an oink Everywhere an oink, oink

BOTH: # Old MacDonald had a farm Ee-eye, ee-eye-oh

# Old MacDonald had a... #

Well, I think enough.

You know, the singing was hard, hard work.

And the performances were, you know,

there was a tremendous amount of discipline involved

and...we were not soloists, really.

We sang well as a group.

Um... We were all closely related and so our voices had a similar timbre

and our conductor, Father Wasner,

who was sadly left out of the film,

had a great talent for arranging music

to capitalise on our strengths and minimise our weaknesses.

Tell me about your mother.

What do you remember about her?

My mother was a very complex person.

Um...

She was an incredibly strong person,

had a formidable will.

HE CHUCKLES

Literally, indomitable will.

-Sometimes, running into that will was not so pleasant.

-Yeah.

And we would have our head-to-heads.

She had a very unhappy childhood.

And someone with her background

either becomes a very strong person

or they end up as a homeless person somewhere.

And she became very strong.

It was Maria's drive that pushed the Trapp Family Singers

and kept them going in America for 20 years.

The Baron was not comfortable with this kind of show business life

and kept in the background.

When he died, in 1947,

the Singers carried on under the leadership of Father Wasner.

It was hard for my grandfather to be on this gruelling schedule,

travelling across the country.

He didn't want to be in public that way.

He was just making life work, because it had to work this way

and their whole world had crumbled

and he didn't have an alternative.

And I think, as the years went by, he became increasingly sad.

Nowadays, we call it depression. Then, they called it melancholia.

The Trapp Family Singers finally disbanded in 1956

and the family started going their separate ways.

For most of the family, it was a relief to stop singing.

It had been 20 years of public performances and that's a long time.

So you were sort of living her dream, really.

-That's correct.

-She was the entertainer.

-That's correct.

-But she did it through her kids.

-Yeah.

My mother loved contact with the public.

She could never have enough.

She was like a politician who shakes hands with 1,000 people

and appears to have more energy at the end of it all than at the start.

You know, they draw nourishment from this contact.

She did a lot of lecturing

and she really needed this contact with the public.

Maria kept the story of the von Trapp family alive

by selling the rights to her autobiography in the 1950s

to German film producers

for a buyout fee of 9,000.

They, in turn, sold the rights to Rodgers and Hammerstein

and later Hollywood.

The von Trapps make very little money from The Sound Of Music,

but the legend Maria created lives on at the Trapp Family Lodge.

The longer I stay here, the more I notice that the people who've come

treat this site as a place of pilgrimage.

It's like a Mecca with melodies

or a Lourdes with lullabies.

And I think for these people, for these visitors,

the film and the real story have become fused as one.

And they make this journey

because they think somehow they're going to find the happy ending here

that has so far eluded them in their real lives.

And they'll get to resolve everything

and dance forever in the beautiful hills,

like a von Trapp child.

If the von Trapp legend is all about happy families,

the reality, as you would expect, is more complicated.

MUSIC: "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"

One member of the family

who best understands the sacrifices made by the singing group

is also the only grandchild to maintain a musical career,

Elisabeth von Trapp.

# Somewhere over the rainbow

# Way up high

# There's a dream that you dreamed of

# Once in a lullaby... #

The survival technique that they had was to stay together

and they, they had made a living

and they bonded so that they wouldn't be scattered.

It was quite complex.

They had a farm,

they had a music camp,

they had...then, they had concert tours

that were booked years in advance,

so they had to be true to that.

So there's great commitment.

Many of the relatives, um...

Some of them never married,

because there was the dynamics of staying true to this vision.

And my grandmother probably had a say in that.

But when it came time and they disbanded,

the greatest difficulty they all had

was starting all over again.

And they had to start over with very little means.

They didn't have the financial support

that a lot of people, when they got into the recordings,

they would have that money.

They didn't have that.

All the money was pooled and put into this place here.

After the singing group disbanded,

Maria and three of her children spent many years

working as missionaries in the South Pacific.

My mother had a bit of a Messiah complex

and when we stopped singing,

our musical mission, if you will, sort of, was over.

And she felt that a religious mission would replace it.

One of the missionary children, also called Maria,

lives on another part of the estate.

She is the oldest daughter of the Baron and his first wife

and is now aged 97.

Right, I'm off to meet the source,

the head honcho, the big bratwurst.

Maria, of course, who's the last remaining

of the original seven von Trapp kids,

as portrayed in the feature film.

THEY LAUGH

That was good!

So it's amazing that you have forgotten how to speak English,

but the music, you can still play the music.

-So you remember..

-Ich kenne die Musik.

Ja, but the Musik still in...in the head.

-Yeah.

-Still there.

-Yes, it is in the head.

-But kein Englisch?

-Nein.

So that's gone, all the memories...

...Englische... Oesterreichisch...

Oesterreich. So you only speak Oesterreich.

-Oesterreichisch.

-Kein Englisch.

-Nein.

-But the music...

-Ist Oesterreichisch.

Maria spent 30 years living in Papua New Guinea

and is now taken care of by her adopted son.

It was an absolute pleasure

to be given a few accordion tips by a living legend.

But life for the von Trapp children was a mixed blessing.

One of Maria's daughters lives off the estate

in the local town of Stowe

and seems to have paid a rather heavy price for being a von Trapp.

-You were the first of Maria's children.

-Yes.

And did that set you apart in any way from the other kids?

Did you feel a distance between you?

Yes. Very much.

Because my mother concentrated on the older set.

-OK. So who...

-The ones in the movie!

-The ones in the movie.

So, tell me about your mother?

Tell me, what sort of person was she like?

A lot of people would say she was too much of a dictator.

I was very shy, and so I had stage fright

and I was just afraid all the time.

I was not happy on stage at all.

-But you were made to do it?

-Yes.

I don't know what she believed in, except the Lord.

She had a chapel in the house.

She tried to get everybody to go into a convent. I was fighting that.

I knew that if I was going in a convent, I would be...

in a prison. Like in a prison.

-And was she always happy and smiley?

-No.

-There was a darker side?

She wasn't all the time happy. She was up and down, I think.

Anyway, I lived with a friend who was bipolar

and she reminded me of my mother.

So you think your mother might have...

I think my mother might have had that.

-Do you think that she was very smiley with the general public and then quite dark at home?

-She tried.

Yes, she tried to be real nice with the public

and then she had to let go and was double cross with us.

When I was 18, my dad died and I had a nervous breakdown.

I guess I depended a lot on him.

In the background, he was always in the background in the concerts.

And... SHE COUGHS

And when he died

I just couldn't handle being at home.

What was your mother's response to your breakdown?

She sent me to psychiatrists!

And they gave me electric shock treatments.

-But that's terrible.

-Well, it was too much.

-Yeah, I really got rebellious.

-So you smoked?

-Did you drink a bit?

-No, no, I didn't drink.

-Did you hang out with boys a bit?

-No. I was scared of boys.

-Were you? Why?

-Because my mother didn't foster us getting into boys.

-So she made you think that they were...

-Yeah, they were taboo.

OK. And to be fearful of.

Maria died in 1987 and is buried in the family cemetery of the lodge.

Her death seemed to undo the von Trapps even more,

and the family fell out over money issues.

In 1996, some members of the family took others to the Supreme Court

in a dispute over the sale of shares in the lodge.

Do you think that once your mother passed away,

that the family started fighting a bit more without her direction?

-Yes.

-Do you think that's true?

Yes, that's true, and they all were looking for their own identity now,

when my mother died.

And then they started fighting about the money, of course,

and then they were all doing their own thing.

If you could have done anything with your life, anything at all...

-Yeah. What I would have done?

-What would you have done?

-Probably I would have got married.

-Yeah?

Yeah. I wanted to, but then I got scared.

What would your ideal husband have been like?

-Can you think about what he would have been like?

-Well, no.

Secretly you can, come on.

Well, I would have wanted one like my dad.

Meeting Rosemarie has thrown up quite a few things for me,

because when I grew up and I watched that film,

all I wanted to be was a von Trapp.

The von Trapps were everything that the von Perkins weren't.

They had perfect vision, they were blue-eyed and blonde-haired,

and they skipped joyfully into the future.

But, hey, of course real life doesn't travel

on the same route as the film

and that's become incredibly poignantly clear.

In the film, of course,

you have a man and a woman meeting and falling in love

and spending the rest of their life together.

For most of the von Trapp girls that never happened.

They were frightened of men,

they were timid about their own futures,

because they'd only had them authored by their mother

and I think sometimes that Maria, their mother's voice,

is still in their heads.

When I returned to Salzburg for the premiere,

I was somewhat chastened by what I'd seen in Vermont.

I'd arranged to meet someone

who was able to shine yet more light on Maria's story -

the nephew of the family's priest,

musical director and enigma, Father Wasner.

So how long did...

Father Wasner joined the family, essentially, didn't he?

He was part of the touring set-up.

-Did he live with the family?

-For 20 years every day.

Every day they started with saying Mass in the morning

and he did his rehearsals every day

and the kids hated him for that.

Georg von Trapp died rather early in '47,

and then my uncle was the only male figure

to still replace the father for the family.

Maria and my uncle were the two rather poor folks

in this noble family.

That probably made them more sympathetic.

Actually, I have here the music.

The lyrics are by Maria von Trapp and the music is by Franz Wasner.

This is a collaboration they did?

She wrote the lyrics, a poem, and he wrote the music in 1935,

which is when he first got to the family.

Zwei Menschen. Two people.

Two people are walking under the starlit moon,

the apple trees are in bloom

and the flower petals fall on their heads like snow.

Bells are ringing in the distance.

But that's not a sacred piece of music.

This is not a sacred piece of music.

SHE SINGS: "Zwei Menschen"

So they composed this together. But this is like a...

It's a dedicated love song.

So you've got Father Wasner and Maria von Trapp

-collaborating on a love song.

-Oh, yes.

The very first day they met.

They both had probably unfulfilled dreams.

-Towards each other, do you think?

-They could understand each other.

They were born in the same year,

they were from the same poor background, simple background,

and they were both dedicated to music and the church.

But they came together in this particular song

and it was some expression of something, we don't know what.

-Yeah.

-OK.

But who wants to know?

Maybe you're right. Maybe it's better as a mystery,

because nobody wants the fairytale to end.

Maria and Father Wasner both travelled as missionaries

to the South Pacific.

They eventually went their separate ways but were reunited in 1984.

'Father Wasner.'

'You know, seeing him again was so normal, so natural,

'as if he had just walked out yesterday.

'And here he is again. He was very much a part of us.'

'He took over automatically and told us not to do this, but to do that.

'And he slowly but surely moulded us into a real musical entity.'

'He's an excellent musician and we were not musicians,

'we were just a family who loved to sing.'

They were remarkable, singing in four parts, very beautifully.

The master sang some hymns and I commented upon them,

upon the singing.

And Father Wasner said,

"Whatever you sang this morning was quite nice, but..."

And that "but" was the decision for our life, you see. On that but...

-Grew the Trapp Family Singers.

-..grew the Trapp Family Singers.

SUE HUMS: "The Sound Of Music"

Whatever the truth is about Maria von Trapp's life,

ultimately it's not the facts we care about.

The magic of any story lies in the way it's told.

Maria's story was created by her,

and then turned into a wonderful musical and a timeless film.

And that's what we love -

the way that life gets turned into art.

So, it's time to embrace the story, get kitted up in a dirndl

and get ready for Salzburg's first performance of The Sound Of Music.

OK. So this is what the bang-on-trend Fraulein is wearing.

This has been going since 1408 and it's Spezialhaus - special house.

Fur Wildledl...

Wildlederbekleidung.

Wildlederbekleidung und Trachten.

Which means wildebeest wear...

for ladies.

Ein bisschen Deutsch. Just ein bisschen.

So, does dirndl mean anything in English?

Dirndl is dirndl. It's always the same.

This is my first dirndl, so you have to be very gentle with me.

So, it's perfect.

-I look like Satanic Heidi.

-No.

-You think it's good?

-Very good.

-You think I could pass as Austrian?

-Ja!

I had to breach about three international treaties

to get into it, but ooh...

That's a firm touch there.

It's making me a bit sprightly already.

It's good. And so... I... I'm going to a premiere.

You must be very good.

If only that were true. You've no idea.

Sort of half scarf, half garrotte.

The great and the good of Salzburg have gathered for the premiere

and Johannes and Sam and Kristina von Trapp

have flown in from Vermont.

-You've come with dirndl!

-Of course I've come in dirndl!

-What do you think?

-Fantastic.

SONG: "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria" in German

SONG: "My Favourite Things" in German

SONG: "Do-Re-Mi" in German

# Edelweiss

# Edelweiss... #

The Salzburg premiere turns out to be a highly political production.

There are Nazi guards standing in the auditorium

and swastikas everywhere.

There's no escaping the past in this show,

but the audience loves it.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

At the curtain call, the cast are joined on stage

by the von Trapps and Nicholas Hammond.

It's a wonderful moment of reconciliation

between Salzburg, the von Trapps and The Sound Of Music.

Goats, leather chaps, great songs. It's been a brilliant night.

What's most moving for me, I think, is the reaction of the crowd,

which was totally visceral,

it was totally unlike any other theatrical experience.

Because it did seem at that moment

that Austria had started to accept not only the musical as coming home,

but the point of their own history coming to roost

and... It was a privilege to be here, anyway.

# Blossom of snow

# May you bloom and grow

# Bloom and grow forever

# Edelweiss

# Edelweiss

# Bless my homeland forever. #