The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Uboats

A friend of mine went to a Sound of Music singalong at the State Theatre last night. Apparently it went for four hours. That's longer than the movie. I think it might even be longer than the events on which the movie was based (somewhat inaccurately). If I sound a little jaded its because four hours of Edelweiss would probably be a little more than I could bear.

For those of you who might have come in late I will summarise the Sound of Music for you. Captain Georg von Trapp was an Austrian u-boat commander in the First World War (what Austria, a land locked country in Central Europe needed with u-boats I will explain later). After the war was over (his side lost) he settled in Salzburg, had a bunch of kids (his wife helped) and generally lived his life. Some years later with his wife out of the picture (Dead? Mad? Kidnapped by aliens?) he hired a novice who strongly resembled Julie Andrews from the local nunnery to act as governess for his children. She taught them a bunch of songs, made them clothes out of curtains and thus won their trust (huh?). She persuaded the captain to sing along with them and the lot of them were selected for the Salzburg music festival. At pretty much the same time they decided that Austria ruled by a bunch of German Nazis wasn't for them (what Germans of any political persuasion were doing ruling Austria is something I will explain later) and they used the cover of the festival to sneak away from the Germans and escape over the border to Switzerland.

In actual fact the Nazis didn't have anything in particular against the von Trapp family, the captain and Maria had been married for several years by the time they decided to leave and what they actually did was catch a train to Italy. Somehow Twentieth Century Fox spun the preceding into a movie that lasted for almost three hours and now it is a four hour show at the State Theatre. The twenty hour long documentary can't be far away.

The von Trapps moved to America and toured as The Trapp Family Singers thus making them Austria's most successful export until Inspector Rex. Still four hours is a little much. I hope my friend enjoyed herself but speaking personally when it comes to things Austrian I'll wait until the dog takes over control.

To explain: At the time of von Trapp's naval career Austria was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire which had an extensive coastline on the Adriatic. Hence the need for u-boats.

To explain again: In 1938 Germany (ruled by another Austrian export named Hitler) moved troops into Austria and formally united the nation with the greater German Reich. Captain von Trapp was not impressed but many Austrians were and remained so until 1945 when they suddenly realised the benefit of being Austrian after all or, at least, not German.