[Apologetics] Sound of music

[Art Kelly]

Yes, the movie is based on Maria von Trapp's book, The
Story of the Trapp Family Singers.

According to several articles in the Wikipedia
article:

"The original Broadway production opened in November
1959, and the show has enjoyed numerous productions
and revivals since then. It has also been made into a
popular 1965 movie musical. The Sound of Music was the
final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein;
Hammerstein died of cancer nine months after the
premiere."

"After viewing Die Trapp-Familie (The Trapp Family), a
1956 German film about the von Trapp family, and its
1958 sequel, Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (The Trapp
Family in America), stage director Vincent J. Donehue
thought that the project would be perfect for his
friend Mary Martin; Broadway producers Leland Hayward
and Richard Halliday (Martin's husband) agreed. 

"The producers originally envisioned a nonmusical play
that would be written by Lindsay and Crouse and that
would feature songs from the repertoire of the Trapp
Family Singers. Then they decided to add an original
song or two, perhaps by Rodgers and Hammerstein. But
it was soon agreed that the project should feature all
new songs and be a musical rather than a play.

"Details of the history of the von Trapp family were
altered for the musical. Georg Ritter von Trapp lived
with his family in a villa in Aigen, a suburb of
Salzburg. 

"The real Maria von Trapp was sent to be a tutor to
one of the children, not a governess to all of them.
The Captain's oldest child was a boy, not a girl, and
the names of the children were changed (at least
partly to avoid confusion: the Captain's eldest
daughter was also called Maria). 

"The von Trapps spent some years in Austria after
Maria and the Captain married – they did not have to
flee right away – and they fled to Italy, not
Switzerland. 

"Maria von Trapp is said to have enjoyed the stage
show but to have hated the movie: her standard
response to praise was, 'It's a nice story, but it's
not my story'."

A seperate Wikipedia article about Maria von Trapp
states:

"Shortly after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938,
the family moved to Italy and then to the United
States. 

"The Trapps made their home at a 660-acre farm in
Stowe, Vermont, in 1942, where they founded a music
camp. Georg von Trapp died of lung cancer on May 30,
1947.
"
Maria's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers,
was a best-seller. It was made into two successful
German/Austrian films.

    * Die Trapp-Familie (1956)
    * Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (1958).

"The book was later adapted into The Sound of Music, a
successful Broadway musical by Rodgers and
Hammerstein, which resulted in an immensely popular
U.S. motion picture. 

"The Sound of Music, with music and lyrics by Richard
Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway
in the fall of 1959, starring Mary Martin and Theodore
Bikel. It was a success, running for more than three
years. 

"The film version set box office records, but the
Baroness von Trapp said she received only about
$500,000 in royalties.

"In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went
their separate ways. Maria and three of her children
became missionaries in the South Pacific. 

"Maria later moved back to Vermont and managed the
Trapp Family Lodge until her death in 1987, at the age
of 82. Maria von Trapp, her husband Georg, and Hedwig
von Trapp (1917–1972), the fifth child of Georg and
Agathe von Trapp, are interred in the family cemetery
at the Lodge. 

"The Lodge is now managed by Georg and Maria's son
Johannes. It remains one of Vermont's most popular
tourist destinations and also serves as one of the
main concert sites for the Vermont Mozart Festival.

"Four of the couple's great-grandchildren, all
children of Stefan von Trapp, the son of Georg's son
Werner, sing as the Von Trapp Children. Maria von
Trapp's granddaughter, Elisabeth von Trapp, is a
singer whose concerts are a mixture of Gregorian
chant, musical comedy, country, and contemporary folk.

"Maria von Trapp makes a cameo appearance in the movie
version of The Sound of Music.

"She died in 1987, on March 28, of kidney failure in
Morrisville, Vermont, three days after surgery."

In an article about Julie Andrews, the Wikipedia had
this very strange comment:

"The Sound of Music has long been a gay favourite, and
its recent Singalong incarnation was originally
created for London's Gay and Lesbian (sic) Film
Festival in 1999.

"Recent gender/cultural studies writers such as Stacy
Wolf and Peter Kemp have argued for a different
reading of the image projected by her two most famous
films, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, as that of
a transgressive, subversive and life-changing force,
rather than a sugary nanny committed to keeping the
traditional status quo. 

"Stacy Wolf's book, A Problem Like Maria - Gender
(sex) and Sexuality in the American Musical, analyzes
Andrews' unique performance style (alongside stars
such as Mary Martin and Ethel Merman) and devotes an
entire chapter to The Sound of Music, studying it
within a queer feminist context, and shedding light on
its importance among lesbian spectators."

That comment is really bizarre.

Art

--- Stephen Korsman <skorsman at theotokos.co.za> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I can't get at anything other than my headers - too
> much to download and it's raining so the connection
> is bad ... so I can't reply to Art's reply.
> 
> I sent it for the humorous side, I agree with the
> article (Damian's views on most things are very
> good, he's a conservative Catholic), but not with
> the bishop and his view of the Sound of Music, which
> the article considers laughable ... I think the
> Sound of Music is a really wonderful movie.  Julie
> Andrews has a few quirks; I didn't know she was a
> gay/lesbian idol until I looked her up on Wikipedia
> yesterday, but the movie itself is good.  Based on
> real people, apparently in line for beatification.
> 
> God bless,
> Stephen
> --
> Stephen Korsman
> skorsman at theotokos.co.za
> The Theotokos Website
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>  
> IC | XC
> ---------
> NI | KA
> 


ART KELLY, ATM-S
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