An Austrian museum is now alive with the Sound of Music, a first-ever venue devoted to the classic 1965 singalong movie starring Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music Salzburg museum, situated in the Austrian city famed for music which is perhaps best known as the home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, opened earlier this month.
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"Raindrops on roses... and whiskers on kittens"... while that song may have listed Julie Andrews' favourite things in the movie "The Sound of Music", the movie itself was definitely NOT one of the favourite things of the citizens of Salzburg in Austria, who viewed it with indifference, dismissing it as 'kitsch' - a german word meaning low quality, tacky or in bad taste.
But that's all changed with the opening of a new museum celebrating the 61-year-old movie, which told the story of the Von Trapp family singers and their escape from the Nazi invasion of Austria.
That's Elisabeth von Trapp, granddaughter of Georg and Agatha von Trapp, whose family story inspired the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and Hollywood blockbuster.
She continues to give guided tours of movie sites in Salzburg today.
The museum is housed in the 17th-century Hellbrunn Palace, where many scenes from the film were shot.
Visitors are treated to nearly 450 objects including props and costumes from the film, cinema posters and recordings of the music.
However, the museum carefully distinguishes the real-life story of the von Trapp family from that of the musical.
Elisabeth von Trapp is impressed:
“It is intimate enough, so you really have a beautiful sense of the storyline of both the Sound of Music and the Trapp family singers - my relatives. I’m very proud of that."
Set against Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, the story centres on a governess named Maria - a postulant nun - who teaches seven children in the von Trapp family to sing and love music, before falling in love with their father and her employer, widower Georg von Trapp.
The family makes a daring escape during a music festival attended by the Nazi hierarchy, and, aided by the nuns in Maria's former convent, climb over the mountains to safety in Switzerland.
Museum curator Matthias Bergsmann says it's important for movie fans to realise the story is not just a scriptwriters' fantasy.
“Many fans coming to Salzburg don’t know that Sound of Music is based on a true story. So, if they maybe get a eureka effect and realize hey, there was a real family in Salzburg, which now lives in the United States or all over the world – then we have reached our goal to a certain degree.”
While the real life residents of Salzburg may have been unimpressed by the movie, fans of the film - which collected five Oscars including best picture - have long flocked to Salzburg.
Several hundred thousand visit the city each year to pay homage to the movie, generating as much as A$140 million dollars [[80 million euros ]] for the Salzburg economy.
One of the key attractions of the museum is the gazebo where yourng Leisl expresses her love for Rolf the postman... and later, Georg admits he has fallen for Maria:
US visitor Terry Brooks enjoyed seeing how the story relates to what happened in real life.
“I love the combination of it being much about the movie, of course, but about the real von Trapp family, which I’ve read much about over the years. So it was fun to see that. And having met and known Elisabeth a little bit it just brought it full circle. Like I say, I thought the museum was very very well done.”
But for real-life Von Trapp family member Elisabeth, it is still the strength of the family bond that stands out.
“And they stayed very loyal to each other. They were true to each other. That’s what the story is about. And they survived together. And that’s – here we see – they had wings because of their singing.”
Veteran movie star Julie Andrews, who played Maria von Trapp, was interviewed for an introduction to a DVD of the movie.
She agrees that family is the central theme of the movie.
"I'm often asked why this film has remained so astonishingly popular after all these years. I don't think there is any one answer. Perhaps its because the Sound of Music is - first and last - about a family. Perhaps it's about faith, or that the values that the film embraces are so decent. The Sound of Music lives on because it offers a promise that, if you have faith and persevere, you can follow every rainbow until you find your dream."
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