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42-632: Lehmann was born in Perleberg , a middle-sized town about halfway between Hamburg and Berlin, in the Province of Brandenburg , Germany. She studied, unsuccessfully, at two music schools in Berlin , (where her family had moved), before finding Mathilde Mallinger (Wagner’s first Eva in Die Meistersinger ) who within a year and a half developed Lehmann’s voice to the level at which she could audition for and achieve

84-462: A Monteverdi madrigal, Holst's "Midwinter," and an arrangement of "The Holly and the Ivy." Another program—unfortunately incomplete, but known to have been presented in 1943 at Boston's Jordan Hall—featured a song by John Dowland, transcriptions by Wasner of Tyrolean folk tunes, and a Trio for two recorders and viola da gamba composed by "Werner von Trapp." In spite of their instrumental accomplishments, however,

126-676: A beginner’s contract with the Hamburg Opera in 1910. At that time she sang roles of pages and other minor roles. By her third year in Hamburg Lehmann was singing important roles such as Agathe in Der Freischütz and Micaëla in Carmen . Her big break came when the absence of the soprano scheduled to sing Elsa in Lohengrin allowed Lehmann her first acknowledged success. She was coached in the role by

168-624: A kindergarten teacher in Maryland; Maria Franziska spent thirty years as a missionary in New Guinea; Werner became a farmer; Hedwig a music teacher; Johanna married and returned to Austria; Rosmarie and Eleonore both settled in Vermont; and Johannes followed his mother by managing the Trapp Family Lodge as a tourist resort. Maria died in 1987 and was buried with Georg and Martina in the family cemetery on

210-403: A mostly agricultural area, the town has a long history of troops (most notably Prussian ) being stationed there and as an administrative center for local government. Perleberg is located in the heart of the district of Prignitz, about halfway between the two largest German cities Berlin and Hamburg. It is surrounded by the municipalities Karstädt to the north-west, Gross Pankow (Prignitz) to

252-691: A prize; after this, accompanied by Dr. Wasner, the family toured and performed in Vienna and Salzburg and undertook a European tour that encompassed France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and England. When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, the family decided to leave, first for Italy (of which the Zadar -born Georg and thus the family were legally citizens). For some months in 1938, just after their flight, they lived in Warmond , near The Hague , Netherlands, as

294-765: A short time in Philadelphia and then Merion, Pennsylvania , where their youngest child Johannes was born, the family settled in Stowe, Vermont , in 1941. They purchased a 660-acre (270 ha) farm in 1942 and converted it into the Trapp Family Lodge , initially called "Cor Unum" (Latin for One Heart ). After World War II , they founded the Trapp Family Austrian Relief fund, which sent food and clothing to people impoverished in Austria. By now based permanently in

336-619: A trial appearance in 1914 as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Vienna Court Opera – the later Vienna State Opera – which she joined in 1916. She quickly established herself as one of the company's brightest stars in roles such as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Elsa in Lohengrin . She created roles in the world premieres of a number of operas by Richard Strauss , including

378-736: The Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California, which she helped found in 1947. She also gave master classes in New York City's Town Hall (for the Manhattan School of Music ), Chicago, London, Vienna, and other cities. Some of her most successful students included: Jeannine Altmeyer, Judith Beckmann, Grace Bumbry, William Cochran, Marilyn Horne, Mildred Miller, Norman Mittelman, Carol Neblett, William Olvis, and Benita Valente. For her contribution to

420-769: The Royal Opera House , Covent Garden where aside from her famous Wagner roles and the Marschallin she also sang Desdemona in Otello and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni . She appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival from 1926 to 1937, performing with Arturo Toscanini , among other conductors. She also gave recitals there accompanied at the piano by the conductor Bruno Walter . In August 1936, while in Salzburg, she discovered

462-555: The Trapp Family Singers , later made more famous in the musical The Sound of Music . Lehmann had heard of a villa available for let and as she approached the villa she overheard the family singing in their garden. Insisting the children had a precious gift, she exclaimed that the family had "gold in their throats" and that they should enter the Salzburg Festival contest for group singing the following night. Having regard to

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504-492: The von Trapp Family ) was a singing group formed from the family of former Austrian naval commander Georg von Trapp . The family achieved fame in their original singing career in their native Austria during the interwar period . They also performed in the United States before emigrating there permanently to escape the deteriorating situation in Austria leading up to World War II . In the United States, they became well known as

546-573: The " Trapp Family Singers " until they ceased to perform as a unit in 1957. The family's story later served as the basis for a memoir , two German films, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical The Sound of Music . The last surviving of the original seven (born to Captain von Trapp and his wife Agathe Whitehead), Maria Franziska , died in 2014 at the age of 99. The youngest and last surviving member of

588-828: The Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos in 1916 (later she sang the title-role in this opera), the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1919 and Christine in Intermezzo in 1924. Her other Strauss roles were the title-roles in Arabella (she sang in the Viennese premiere on 21 October 1933, even though her mother had died earlier that day) and in Der Rosenkavalier (earlier in her career, she had also sung

630-533: The Rodgers and Hammerstein-created, crowd-pleasing popular numbers as later included in the musical and film versions of their lives. Many of their studio recordings survive and have been reproduced as contemporary CD compilations. As for their live performances, in his 2004 essay Family values: The Trapp Family Singers in North America, 1938-1956 , Michael Saffle writes: It is difficult to document today precisely what

672-543: The Tide Was Flowing;' and among the old American folksongs we found hidden treasures. Our program now had five parts: first, sacred music, selections from the ancient masters from the sixteenth and seventh centuries; second, music played on the ancient instruments: recorders , viola da gamba , spinet ; third, madrigals and ballads; fourth, Austrian folksongs and mountain calls; fifth, English and American folksongs." Five grandchildren of Werner von Trapp (called "Kurt" in

714-602: The Trapp Family Singers (born to Captain von Trapp and Maria von Trapp) is Johannes von Trapp . Georg von Trapp had seven children at the time of the death of his first wife, Agathe Whitehead , and in 1927 he married Maria Kutschera , who was twenty-five years his junior, and had three more children with her. Both parts of the family were musical, and by 1935 the family was singing at the local church in Aigen , where they made

756-507: The Trapps performed and where they performed it. Only a very few of their programs have been reprinted. One of these—again, a Christmas program—identifies an arrangement of three short pieces (for "Antique Instruments") and a Sonata by Sammartini (presented by a "Quintet of Recorders") as the evening's principal instrumental selections; shorter vocal works included Praetorius's "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen,"

798-464: The Trapps were above all a vocal ensemble that sang (and played) music together largely for religious reasons. On the other hand, press releases subsequent to 1940 advertised "rollicking folk songs of many lands," "gay, lilting madrigals," and "lusty yodels and mountain calls" as well as "exquisite old motets and masses," and bragged of "record cross-country tour[s]" and large numbers of engagements, which attested to their popular appeal and suggests that

840-493: The U.K. in 1938 and as Midway in My Song in the U.S. She also published More than Singing (1945), on the interpretation of song, and My Many Lives (1948), on the interpretation of opera roles. Later books included Five Operas and Richard Strauss , known as Singing with Richard Strauss in the U.K., a second book of poems in 1969, and Eighteen Song Cycles in 1971, consisting of material drawn largely from earlier works. Lehmann

882-464: The United States on September 7, 1939, and applied for immigrant status. They arrived with very little money, having lost most of the family fortune earlier during a 1935 banking collapse in Austria. Once in the United States, they earned money by performing and touring nationally and internationally, first as the "Trapp Family Choir" and then, the "Trapp Family Singers", a change suggested by their booking agent Frederick Christian Schang . After living for

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924-461: The United States, the family performed their unique mixture of liturgical music, madrigals, folk music and instrumentals to audiences in over 30 countries for the next 20 years. They made a series of 78-rpm records for RCA Victor in the 1950s, some of which were later issued on RCA Camden LPs. There were also a few later recordings released on LPs, including some stereo sessions. The family singing group disbanded in 1957. Maria wrote an account of

966-525: The United States. There, she continued to sing at the Metropolitan Opera until 1945 and the San Francisco Opera until 1946. In addition to her operatic work, Lehmann was a renowned singer of lieder , giving frequent recitals throughout her career. She recorded and toured with pianist Ernő Balogh in the 1930s. Beginning with her first recital tour to Australia in 1937, she worked closely with

1008-481: The accompanist Paul Ulanowsky . He remained her primary accompanist for concerts and master classes until her retirement fourteen years later. She also made a foray into film acting, playing the mother of Danny Thomas in MGM's Big City (1948), which also starred Robert Preston , George Murphy , Margaret O'Brien and Betty Garrett . After her retirement from the recital stage in 1951, Lehmann taught master classes at

1050-449: The acquaintance of a young priest, Dr. Franz Wasner , who encouraged their musical progress and taught them sacred music to add to the folk songs, madrigals and ballads they were already singing. Whilst singing at their Salzburg home, they were also heard by the German concert singer Lotte Lehmann , who persuaded them to take part in the song competition in Salzburg in 1936, for which they won

1092-905: The company, Lehmann sang more than fifty different roles, including Marie/Marietta in Korngold's Die tote Stadt , the title-roles in La Juive by Fromental Halévy , Mignon by Ambroise Thomas , and Manon by Jules Massenet , Charlotte in Werther , Marguerite in Faust , Tatiana in Eugene Onegin and Lisa in The Queen of Spades . In the meantime she had made her debut in London in 1914, sung on tour in South America in 1922, and from 1924 to 1935 performed regularly at

1134-556: The dream island described in Hugo Wolf 's art song "Gesang Weylas". She held a long correspondence with numismatist Dorothy B. Waage . Perleberg Perleberg ( German: [ˈpɛʁləˌbɛʁk] ; North Margravian : Perlberg ) is the capital of the district of Prignitz , located in the northwest of the German state of Brandenburg . The town received city rights in 1239 and today has about 12,000 inhabitants. Located in

1176-644: The family's aristocratic background the Baron insisted performing in public was out of the question; however Lehmann's fame and genuine enthusiasm persuaded the Baron to relent, leading to their first public performance. In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre . She returned to the United States every season thereafter making her Metropolitan Opera debut as Sieglinde in 1934. Before Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann emigrated to

1218-450: The film), published her own account of life in the Trapp family in 2003, Memories Before and After The Sound of Music , which was later itself turned into the film The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music in 2015. Two members of the group died while the group was still active, Georg in 1947 at age 67, and Martina, who died in childbirth in 1951 at age 30. At the time of its cessation in 1957,

1260-446: The group included a number of non-family members and "only Maria's iron will had kept the group together for so long." After the group's demise, Maria, Johannes, Rosmarie, and Maria Franziska went to New Guinea to do missionary work; later Maria returned to run the Trapp Family Lodge for a number of years. Of the remaining children in their later years, Rupert was already a medical doctor during World War II; Agathe spent many years as

1302-474: The guests of a Dutch banker, Ernest Menten. This episode is described by local historian Miep Smitsloo in her 2007 Dutch book 'Tussen Tol en Trekvaart' ('Between Toll and Canal'). In her account of the flight, Maria von Trapp does not mention this stay. From there they went to London and then to the United States, where they stayed until the expiration of their visas. After touring in Scandinavia, they returned to

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1344-418: The north-east, Plattenburg to the south-east; the Ämter Bad Wilsnack/Weisen in the south, Lenzen-Elbtalaue in the west; and the town of Wittenberge to the south-west. The Stepenitz flows from northeast to southwest through Perleberg. The town's historic center is built on an island between two arms of the river. One of the town's oldest buildings is St James's Church. First mentioned in 1294, it

1386-413: The property. All of the original seven Trapp children had died by 2014, while only one of the later three children born to Georg and Maria, Johannes, is alive as of January 2024. Eleonore "Lorli" von Trapp Campbell died on 17 October 2021, and Rosmarie died on 13 May 2022. The real-life Trapp family were a respected Austrian singing group throughout their career. However, their style was a world away from

1428-615: The recording industry, Lehmann has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1735 Vine St. However, her first name is misspelled there as "Lottie." She was a prolific author, publishing a book of poems Verse in Prosa in 1923, a novel, Orplid, mein Land in 1937, which appeared in English as Eternal Flight , and a book of memoirs, Anfang und Aufstieg (1937), which later appeared as On Wings of Song in

1470-518: The religious content was only one of several contributing elements to this over their main period of popularity in America. According to Maria, under the management of F.C. Schang, "Our programs in the past had been mostly in Latin and German. Now we added English numbers. Among the English madrigals and folksongs we found some wonderful pieces like 'Sweet Honeysucking Bees,' 'Early One Morning,' and 'Just as

1512-618: The role of Sophie and Octavian; when she finally added the Marschallin to her repertoire, she became the first soprano in history to have sung all three female lead roles in that opera). Her Puccini roles at the Vienna State Opera included the title-roles in Tosca , Manon Lescaut , Madama Butterfly , Suor Angelica , Turandot , Mimi in La bohème and Giorgetta in Il tabarro . In her 21 years with

1554-767: The singing family The Story of the Trapp Family Singers which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family , which in turn inspired Rodgers and Hammerstein 's 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music and then its 1965 film adaptation starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer , which held the title of highest-grossing film of all-time for five years. The original seven Trapp children were: Rupert (1911–1992); Agathe (1913–2010); Maria Franziska (1914–2014); Werner (1915–2007); Hedwig (1917–1972); Johanna (1919–1994); and Martina (1921–1953). The later children were Rosmarie (1929–2022), Eleonore (1931–2021), and Johannes (b. 1939). The eldest daughter, Agathe (called "Liesl" in

1596-539: The stars.") In 1926 Lehmann married Otto Krause, a former officer in the Austrian army. They had no children. Krause, who died of tuberculosis in 1939, had four children from a previous marriage. Lehmann never remarried. After Krause's death until her own death in 1976 Lehmann shared a home with Frances Holden (1899–1996), a psychologist who specialised in the study of genius, particularly that of classical musicians. The two women named their Santa Barbara house "Orplid" after

1638-651: The town: of 3,500 inhabitants, only 300 survived. The mayor responsible for rebuilding the town after this period was Georg Krusemarck. On November 25, 1809, Benjamin Bathurst disappeared in Perleberg. Later accounts of the incident exaggerated the circumstances to such an extent that the disappearance is sometimes claimed to have been caused by paranormal phenomena . Perleberg is twinned with: [REDACTED] Media related to Perleberg at Wikimedia Commons Trapp Family Singers The Trapp Family (also known as

1680-626: The young assistant conductor at the Hamburg Opera, Otto Klemperer . Thereafter she further sang larger roles such as Irene in Rienzi , Antonia in Les contes d’Hoffmann , Dorabella in Così fan tutte and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung. In 1913, Hans Gregor, the director of the Vienna Court Opera, came to Hamburg to hear a tenor, but noticed Lehmann as Micäela and offered her a contract. Lehmann began her Vienna career with

1722-595: Was an active painter, especially in her retirement. Her painting included a series of twenty-four illustrations in tempera for each song of Schubert's Winterreise . Lehmann died in 1976 at the age of 88 in Santa Barbara, California . She is interred in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna . Her headstone is inscribed with a quote from Richard Strauss : " Sie hat gesungen, daß es Sterne rührte. " ("She sang such that it moved

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1764-479: Was frequently altered and extensively remodelled in the 1850s. In German , it is called the Jakobikirche , and therefore sometimes mistakenly called St Jacob's in English. In the 14th century the town was at its height as part of the Hanseatic League . In 1523 it was the muster point for an army assembled by Elector Joachim I in support of his brother-in-law Christian II of Denmark 's attempt to recover his throne. The Thirty Years' War caused serious damage to

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