The Sound of Music zwischen Mythos und Marketing, and: Walt Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films of Walt Disney (review)

Some months ago, a Philadelphia colleague told me she had spent an evening at a Sound of Music sing-along. She found it to be a most astonishing event, with audience members dressed in dirndl and lederhosen and many people capable of recalling lyrics from the film. An evening of this nature is unthinkable in Austria, the land where the nearly mythic von Trapp family's tale of family, love, music, righteousness, and determination in the face of evil takes place, where the film was a flop, and where today hardly anyone knows what the film is about or who the Trapp family was. "Edelweiss" was never a popular song in Austria. By contrast, The Sound of Music has lured more American visitors to Austria than the country's rich cultural legacy or its spectacular mountains. Sound of Music tours have been offered in the Salzburg region for decades, but Austrians rarely take them. Now Ulrike Kammerhofer-Aggermann and Alexander Keul have brought together contributions from twenty-seven individuals from academic and applied settings who jointly shed light on the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, the American film and Julie Andrews vehicle, the film's German cinematic predecessors, and the place of these productions in popular culture and the marketplace.

Produced as much for a local, lay audience as for an academic readership, the contributions are uneven yet fascinating in their effort to grasp the phenomenon comprehensively. Part 1 consists of two short, literary vignettes that sketch the pervasive presence of The Sound of Music in the most unlikely places on the globe. Part 2 looks at the actual history of the Trapp family, drawing from interviews, letters, and written accounts by family members as well as individuals who worked with or for them. Particularly interesting are the portraits of Martha Zöckbauer, who worked for the Trapps for eight years in America, and of Pater Franz Matthias Wasner, who "discovered" the Trapp choir in the 1930s; became their conductor, arranger, and manager; and accompanied them to America. Part 3 chronicles the path from Maria Augusta von Trapp's book to films, the musical, documentaries, and perhaps somewhat absurdly, sound recordings that drew on the songs of the film musical rather than the quite different repertoire that the Trapp choir actually performed. The historical and visual inaccuracies of the film remain a source of amusement and critique for a number of the authors, in particular the magical flight of the Trapps from Salzburg's Unterberg right into Switzerland which would, geographically, be completely impossible.

Part 4 examines the interplay of the growing Trapp fame with its marketing, while the final section explores ways in which Salzburg could potentially exploit The Sound of Music more successfully. These last two parts contain contrasting points of view. In one, individuals from the world of tourism and cultural management seriously and statistically probe the further sales potential of the saga, while in the other cultural critics theorize the peculiar role of this document in Austrian-American relations. With detailed musical analyses, visual comparisons, a storehouse of interesting pieces of information, and some 122 (in part quite esoteric, though not necessarily fully explained) illustrations, the editors have made a tremendous effort to explain the phenomenal reception of a piece of their country's history in America.

Folklorists have critically examined Walt Disney's animated adaptations of folktales, focusing perhaps unduly on plot changes made in the service of the American dream, gender and ethnic stereotypification...