Surprising Details Of "The Sound Of Music" Film And Musical That Differ From The True Story

Whether or not it might come as a shock to you, not all of the contents of the stage production and movie are entirely accurate. This includes when exactly Maria von Trapp came into the lives of the von Trapp family and stole their hearts. Let's first take a brief look at Maria's early life and how she met her future family.

Maria von Trapp was born as Maria Augusta Kutschera on January 26th, 1905 onboard a train that was heading to Vienna, Austria. She was only two years old during the passing of her mother, and became the foster child of a second cousin on her father's side of the family.

As a child, she was educated alone. After five years in primary school and three years in secondary, she spent four years at a State Teacher's College.

Von Trapp was brought up as an atheist, but her views changed after she accidentally attended a service at her college's church, thinking she made it to a Bach performance. Watching Father Kronseder speak caused an overwhelming sensation to arise within her, and later meeting with him would fully take her out of her anti-religious opinions.

She began preparing to be a nun in Salzburg at the Nonnberg Abbey, where it was brought to her attention that it was time for her to head out to the Trapp family's villa. Her job would be a governess and tutor to the captain's (Georg) daughter suffering with a fever in bed. 

This is where we could first spot a difference between the movie and musical, and real life events. While Maria was suggested to look after only one of the captain's children, in the movie and musical, the Mother of the nuns stated that she'd tend to all of them.

In the film and play, we witness the wholesome, beautiful moments where Maria teaches the children music and how to sing after they were used to living in a strict, restricted household. In reality, the family was musical before they met Maria although they learned madrigals from her.

An additional note, while the father was betrayed as one with a distant, almost authoritarian role, he was the exact opposite. He was soft and very much loving to his children and did not despise anything musical that went on the household.

While the movie and play stayed true to the fact that Maria and Georg got married, a couple of facts are inaccurate. They did not get married right before The Holocaust really began to take off in the late 1930's, but actually many years prior in 1927. 

The film shows Maria hopelessly fall in love with the Captain with a firm, intimidating exterior but a soft heart, especially in the moment leading up to them talking about marriage. In real life, Maria did not marry him because she had romantic feelings for him, but because of the children. In "Maria", her autobiography, she said,

"I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children.  . . . [B]y and by I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."

Speaking of the children, Maria did not have seven stepchildren. There were just a few more, making the total ten. Among these children, their real names were not used and their ages and sexes had been changed.

We see the Von Trapps flee the Nazis during the first years of the Holocaust by climbing over the Switz Alps to safety in Switzerland. The majority of this never took place. They did manage to leave Austria, but by train to Italy. 

For some further information on their immigration from Austria, Georg's birth place, Zadar, was apart of Italy during the time they stayed there, which meant that Georg was a citizen of Italy. A contract the family had with a reservation agent from America upon departing Austria made it easy for them to reach out to the Italian agent to ask for transportation to the US.

The movie and play show us Max Detweiler, a friend of Georg's who strongly encourages the von Trapps to get their music talent out to the public, specifically at a musical competition. He was a fictional character, and the family's priest, Reverend Franz Wasner, spent a couple of decades in charge of their musical direction.

While the Maria in the movie and play was mostly sweet in her interactions with other people, her real-life version had usual mood swings where she would begin yelling and even partake in door-slamming and throwing objects. Her stepdaughter Maria said in a 2003 interview that she,

"had a terrible temper. . . . And from one moment to the next, you didn't know what hit her. We were not used to this. But we took it like a thunderstorm that would pass, because the next minute she could be very nice.

Knowing this information might have cause your vision on the movie and play to be altered, which you might notice if you'll view the movie or a production of the musical in the future. However, they might have served as interesting lessons to you, perhaps a refreshing way to look at some historical events, and thoughts that pop up to the mention of their title or one of their songs.

Sources:

Maria von Trapp - The Sound of Music (sound-of-music.com)

Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family | National Archives