It is difficult to forget that hauntingly melodious film, The Sound of Music, one of the best loved musicals based on the real-life story of the singing von Trapp family, who escaped Nazi persecution by making use of a Salazburg music festival to cross over the Alps. Wise, the producer and director of the film, never thought that the film would become a record-breaker at the box office. But it turned out to be the first film to gross over $ 100 million. And it is one of the most beloved musicals of all times: some of the numbers like 'Do re mi…', 'Sixteen going on seventeen…', 'Edelweiss…' and 'So long farewell…' have been in the heart of just about everyone who has seen the film ever since 1965 when the film was released. The film ran for 1,443 performances and earned seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The original cast album earned a Gold Record and the Grammy Award. Captain von Trapp (played by Christopher Plummer) singing a prayer ('Bless my homeland forever'), the pure and innocent Maria (Julie Andrews) singing about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, and the lovely scenery of Salazburg and the Austrian Alps, among others, have an evocative charm.
Jarring notes emerged from the Captain's guitar a few years ago when the Trapp family (the children, I mean, because Maria had died in 1987 and the Captain forty years before that) were in the news: they had fallen out with one another over the control of a hotel they had established at Vermont in the US.
There is some refreshing news about the Trapp family now. The hills are alive with the sound of music again: four great-grandchildren of Captain von Trapp have revived the family tradition. Sofia (13), Melanie (11), Amanda (10), and Justin (7) have gone into the singing business. They have released their first CD and signed up with a music label. The marketing is being done under the name, 'The von Trapp Children'.
Their father, Stephen von Trapp, never thought that the family was musically inclined. But when he listened to a tape of songs sung by the four children, he realized what a gift they had been bestowed with. The best way of valuing the gift, he thought, was to let the children sing and represent the family tradition.
The von Trapp family's hearts have been "blessed with the sound of music" again, and they will "sing once more".
I still remember the time when you showed us this film on the T.V. in the rec room. It was mighty difficult to understand anything that was going on the screen; the accent being a little hard to follow, the screen being a tad too tiny to see and the sound very low :) I watched it again, last year and I could appreciate why you all(teachers) decided to show it to us of all the films.
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