With a Run of Concerts at Trapp Family Lodge, 'The Sound of Music' Comes Home

By MARY ANN LICKTEIG

Published June 19, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. | Updated June 19, 2024 at 12:52 p.m.



Mary Martin, Broadway's first Maria, running with some of Maria and Georg's grandchildren in Stowe in 1959 - TONI FRISSELL | ADAM CUERDEN | (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)
©TONI FRISSELL | ADAM CUERDEN | (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

When Julie Andrews flings open her arms, sings and twirls in the opening scene of The Sound of Music, she quickly captures the hearts of moviegoers. As Maria, the spirited novice-turned-governess for the widowed Captain von Trapp's seven children, she sings her way into their hearts as well. She marries the captain, and the family hikes over the Alps to escape Nazi-occupied Austria, backed by the soaring reprise of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain." The 1965 film, inspired by the real von Trapp family, is the most successful movie musical of all time.

This week The Sound of Music comes home when Lyric Theatre and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra bring the Broadway musical score to the Stowe hillside on which the von Trapp family settled in 1942 and where descendants still operate a sprawling hospitality business. Four sold-out performances from Thursday, June 20, through Saturday, June 22, mark the first-ever concert version of the musical and the first time the Rodgers and Hammerstein work has been performed live at Trapp Family Lodge.

The event is a testament to both the world's love affair with the musical and the affection Vermonters hold for the von Trapps. Swift tickets sales surprised no one — the fourth performance was added to meet demand. "There's a mythology around this show," Lyric Theatre executive director Erin Evarts said. "And there's mythology around the show specifically for those of us who grew up in Vermont." Here, the von Trapps are neighbors. And locals grow up learning, Evarts said only a little facetiously, that "they walked up and over the Alps and down into Stowe."

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Johannes retired from the lodge last year and spends time on his cattle ranch in New Mexico, where he introduces himself as "Von" and no one expects him to sing "Edelweiss." He and his siblings had conflicting opinions about the movie, which, like the Broadway show that preceded it, changed their names and took a number of other artistic liberties.

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