Lesson 5:The Trapp Family Singers

Real Life vs. Reel Life
The Sound of Music remains
popular worldwide. Millions of
people know about the Trapp
family from the film. The screen
version doesn’t tell the exact events
that happened, but it does tell a
parallel story to the real-life events.
For example, the movie shows
the family’s escape from the Nazis
shortly after Georg and Maria are
married. In reality, they had been
married for almost 11 years before
they fled Austria. Here are some
This photograph shows
a scene from the movie,
other discrepancies between
The Sound of Music.
the true story and the film:
• Maria was hired as a tutor to one
child, not as a governess to all of the children.
• The family had 10 children, not 7.
• The names and ages of the children were altered.
• The Trapps didn’t climb the Alps to escape to
Switzerland. They traveled to Italy by train before
leaving for the United States.
• The Trapps’ priest was their musical director, not
a musical promoter as shown in the movie.
• The real-life Maria was known to have a bad temper,
while the fictional Maria is always sweet.
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