Trapp Family, Austrian singers whose story was made into a popular Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical,
The Sound of Music (1959), that proved one of the most successful in theatre history. Their story was also the basis for a film starring Julie Andrews (1965) that had a comparable success.
Maria Augusta Kutschera (b. Jan. 26, 1905, Vienna d. March 28, 1987, Morrisville, Vt., U.S.), the best-known member of the family, wrote
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949). She recounted her experience as an orphan and novitiate in a Benedictine convent in Salzburg. As a governess, she won the hearts of the seven children of a widower, Freiherr (Baron) Georg von Trapp, a World War I submarine commander, and of the baron himself. She was married to Trapp in 1927, and they had three children. In the mid-1930s the family began singing German and liturgical music under the tutelage of the Reverend Franz Wasner, who continued as their director. In 1937 they made their first Europ