The highly praised 1965 musical The Sound of Music follows nun Maria, played by Julie Andrews, who gets herself kicked out of her Austrian convent when she’s just a novice on account of her obsession with twirling on alps and her inability to stick to the nunnery’s rules. Naturally, she falls in love with her employer, the gruff and domineering Captain Georg von Trapp, who hires her to work as a governess to his seven unruly children. Soon, she’s ready to give up her imminent vows and cozy up in her new husband’s mansion — until the encroaching Nazis and the chance for musical stardom force them out of Austria.
But who are the von Trapps? Are they even real? Were the large family and their governess really that musically inclined? For the most part, the answer is yes. Here’s everything we know about the true story The Sound of Music is based on.
So, yes, The Sound of Music is based on a true story. The film was based on the first section of Maria von Trapp’s 1949 book, “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.” The book details the story of how Maria Augusta Kutschera grew up as an orphan raised by a court-appointed guardian before entering a convent as a novice and being sent by its abbess to become a tutor (Yes, a tutor, not a governess) for one of the children of Baron Georg von Trapp.
Georg was “a highly decorated submarine commander during World War I,” wrote Peter Kerr for the New York Times in Maria von Trapp’s 1987 obituary, “who had retired with his seven children after his first wife’s death. The young woman quickly won the affection of the children and, when the baron proposed marriage, she was torn between her devotion to the church and the family.”
The family eventually won, the two married, and the entire family eventually escaped Austria to pursue their very successful musical career as The Trapp Family Choir.
The movie does, however, alter the truth of what the real von Trapps went through as they escaped Austria for musical freedom.
For starters, the family was musically gifted long before Maria entered the picture. However she did teach them how to sing the madrigals, writes Joan Gearin for the National Archives.
Also, there were 10 children, not seven, and Maria initially came to the von Trapp family as a tutor for one child, rather than a governess to all. Regardless, like in the film, Maria fell in love with the children first, all of whose names and sexes were changed for the film. The more she spent time tutoring, singing, and caring for the household, the more inclined she was to marry Georg.
As she explained in her autobiography “Maria,” when he asked her to marry him, she was not sure if she should abandon her religious calling, but was advised by the nuns to do God’s will and marry Georg. “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.” Eventually, Maria and Georg married in 1927, 11 years before the family left Austria, not right before the Nazis took over Austria.
While the von Trapp family really did flee to America to escape the Nazis and start their musical careers, it wasn’t much of an “escape” at all. Rather than secretly climbing over the Alps to freedom in Switzerland with suitcases and musical instruments in hand, “We did tell people that we were going to America to sing,” Maria tells Opera News in a 2003 printed interview. “And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing.”
They also didn’t even go to Switzerland. The von Trapps traveled to Italy, because Georg was born in Zadar (now in Croatia), which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Zadar became part of Italy in 1920, making Georg, as well as his wife and children, Italian citizens. The family had a contract with an American booking agent when they left Austria, so they contacted their agent from Italy and requested a fare to America.
The final difference between the film and reality arises in the personalities of Georg and Maria. Georg was far from the detached, cold-blooded patriarch of the family who disapproved of music, as he is portrayed in the first half of The Sound of Music. He was actually a gentle, warmhearted father who enjoyed musical activities with his children. Even more surprising, Maria wasn’t always as sweet as the fictional character. Though she was always a caring and loving woman, she often erupted into angry outbursts consisting of yelling, throwing things, and slamming doors — to be fair, 10 kids sure is a lot to handle!
In her 2003 interview, the younger Maria confirmed that her stepmother “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.”