The Sound of Music 1965 film by Rodgers and Hammerstein continues to attract a worldwide public via yearly re-runs. The “Trapp Family Lodge” in Stowe, Vermont, is a popular destination resort, and a direct reach of the famous clan extends all the way to the “European Art Gallery” in Bellevue. A visit to the “Von Trapp Family Collection by Helene” is scheduled there for Sunday, September 21 (2 - 5p.m.) in celebration of this year’s Austrian-American Day in Washington State.

            Helene’s collection consists foremost of art by three daughters of Baron Georg von Trapp and his first wife Agathe: Agathe (1913) - oldest daughter and second child, Maria (1914) - third child, and Johanna (1919 - 1994), the second youngest of the famous seven children. Johanna was a longtime resident of La Conner and Fidalgo Island.

             The collection includes watercolors, crayon etchings, linoleum block prints, sketches, many photographs, books and artifacts. The gallery owner and close friend of the famous Trapp family is passionately involved in their actual lives, has intimate insight into their artistic endeavors and  shares sentiments associated with their performance successes since she herself also had a career in singing. Some reproductions are available for sale.

            Other connections between the Von Trapp family from Austria to Washington State include a Sound of Music production by the Seattle Civic Light Opera in 1994, coupled with a benefit auction  of Johanna von Trapp’s watercolor paintings; the yearly musical by the Leavenworth Summer Theater; the performance by the grandchildren of Baron von Trapp at the Kirkland Performing Arts Center in 2003, and the German film “Die Trapp Familie” presented in Seattle by the Austrian-American Council as an Austrian-American Day event in 2005.

            This year’s meeting of the “Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association”, co-sponsored by the Germanics Department at the University in Seattle, yielded a copy of Dr. Jaqueline Vansant’s article titled “Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music and the “Denazification” of Austria in American Cinema”. It will be available at the tour. In the popular film Americans were introduced to a romanticized version of the escape by the Trapp family and their music performances while the Hollywood filmmakers intentionally ignored the historic facts.

            Trapp family members have recorded, remember and view their story rather differently than producers and writers have portrayed it. From Helene we shall see and hear the story behind the “Sound of Music” as presented in her collection.