The pain behind the movie

By ADAM BENNETT

When the young Agathe Von Trapp stood on the deck of a transatlantic steamer watching dawn break over the late 1930s Manhattan skyline, she and her talented siblings had just escaped Europe's grim fate under the Nazis.

Ahead was a new life in America, a successful singing career and their immortalisation in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.

The 1965 film version of the show would make them and their stepmother Maria, portrayed in the movie by Julie Andrews, the byword for wholesome family values.

But all was not sweetness and light. Von Trapp says the film's hurtful portrayal of her family made her cry the first time she saw it.

"In the beginning I was really not happy about it because it hurt our name, my father's name," she said from her Maryland home.

"It did not present my father correctly.

"He [actor Christopher Plummer] wore the uniform of my father but he didn't act like my father, he didn't look like my father and it was just terrible.

"They used him. They had to have a heroine - that was my second mother (Maria, played by Andrews) - and she put him into the shadow and made it look as if he was a strict man and a disciplinarian and that he didn't know anything about his children, which of course was completely wrong."

Von Trapp says the film's portrayal of the young governess Maria teaching Captain Von Trapp how to love his children was particularly painful. "He always did anyway, so the whole thing was upsetting to me."

She says the film's makers didn't consult the family about the production, unlike the star of the musical's Broadway run, Mary Martin.

"She came and saw us and was very nice and we learnt from her."

The musical's writers, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, never met the family either. But The Sound of Music, the pair's last collaboration, has ensured the family name will endure.

Meanwhile, many of The Sound of Music's tunes have become well-loved standards.

Andre 3000 of hip-hop superstars Outkast includes a drum and bass version of My Favourite Things on the group's recent hit album Speakerboxx/The Love Below.

And while new generations of music lovers enjoy The Sound of Music's songs, fresh audiences continue to appreciate the film.

In fact it has developed a cult following, with some screenings featuring younger costumed cinema-goers participating in ironic and rowdy celebrations of its saccharine appeal.

Von Trapp chuckles at the thought of such a kitsch response to the film, "but if they want to do it I can't stop them".

She now appreciates the movie and the attention it has brought her family.

"I see how popular The Sound of Music is among the older generations, now the new ones.

"People love The Sound of Music and the family is loved because of The Sound of Music.

"In a way it is a good movie, and in itself it is a good story.

"So many people like it and they get a lot out of it. Why should I begrudge them that?

"I just said 'let the movie be the movie and let us be us'."

Nevertheless, she felt compelled to set the record straight about her father, and last year published her autobiography and family history titled Agathe Von Trapp - Before and After The Sound of Music.

"The Sound of Music is so popular in many different countries, but when people found out there was a real family behind the story then they got really interested."

But before the movie and the Broadway show that preceded it the Von Trapp children were successful performers in their own right, touring the world and livening up the austere post-war years with their sweet alpine harmonies.

Their travels included a New Zealand visit in 1955, which Von Trapp remembers fondly.

"New Zealand was so beautiful. We went to see the Maoris and we learnt a Maori song, Po kare kare ana."

The Von Trapps stopped touring in 1956. After that Agathe Von Trapp ran kindergartens for 35 years.

Of the other original Von Trapp children, one became a doctor, while another was a lay missionary in New Guinea for 32 years.

Others spread as far as Hawaii and even back to Austria.

Now, nearly half a century after the Von Trapps visited, four of Agathe Von Trapp's great nieces and nephews, complete with blond pigtails and leiderhosen, are coming to New Zealand for a series of shows.

The children sing similar repertoire to the original Von Trapps and have received glowing reviews.

Von Trapp says the children are much younger than she and her brothers and sisters were when they toured.

"They are very nice sweet children ... but the people teaching them music are not as good as our conductor."

The original Von Trapps' songs were arranged and conducted by priest Franz Wasner. "He was a very outstanding musician."

Back in the days when Wasner was coaching the Von Trapp children they had no thoughts of a career in music. "We sang because we loved to sing."

However, after some time the children were signed to work as far away as America, an offer that provided them with their ticket out of Europe just as the Nazis were about to plunge the continent into war.

"It was the strangest thing. For a year before we left I always had this inner feeling that something wrong was going to come.

"We knew the dangers and we also appreciated the fact that we had this contract.

"It was only for the concerts we could come to America. We had the tickets, we had permission to enter, we had working permits and we had a sponsor.

"If we hadn't had that we would have probably been on a quota somewhere in France and eventually we would have disappeared."

Unsurprisingly, she says the journey to America - a country the children knew of mostly for its skyscrapers and criminals - was the start of a new adventure.

"When we got there it was really something to see. We arrived in the morning at 6am and there was a sunrise and a pink haze over the skyline and the Statue of Liberty. It was a very impressive moment."

Performance

* What: The Von Trapp Children

* Where and when: Forum North, Whangarei, August 18; TSB Theatre, New Plymouth, August 21; Wellington Town Hall, August 23; Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland, Sept 15; Bay Court Theatre, Tauranga, Sept 16; Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Sept 17

- NZPA