You know me.  I like to jump back in history every now and again.  Especially  when the event has a perpetuating effect on me .  So today is one of stellar proportions.

It was a Monday night.  Cold, brisk, dark.  New York City.   But the city was shining bright on that particular night.  Yes… on November 16, 1959…. the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music” opened on Broadway.

Now the particulars of all this hoopla are interesting.  The show starred the wildly popular Mary Martin (aka Peter Pan in 1954) as Maria…. the original singing nun.

Yet, what about the real life-story … …did the young Austrian nun really flutter up to the hills surrounding Salzburg to sing whenever the bee stung, or the dog bit?   Did she nuzzle little kittens, and wear bright woolen mittens?  And how about that stiff-board future husband, and all those raucous kids?  Did they skip out of town with the Nazi Regime on their tails?

Well.  Truth be told. Not so much.  Nope.  The real-life Maria von Trapp did none of those things. She WAS a former nun…. that part is true.  And… she DID marry Count Georg von Trapp.  All the rugrats were about too.

But the real Maria wrote a book in 1949.  It was called The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.  The actual particulars and details of her life were pretty much ignored by the creators of the Broadway musical.  Her memoir bit the dust.

The show’s writers were Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.  Of course…. the composer and lyricist….. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.  They all joined noggins and mapped out a much more entertaining version of the Von Trapps.

The real Maria von Trapp and her stepchildren were not too happy about this.  At all.  According to many later reports… they were all out peeved.  Their Lederhosen were all in a bunch.  Yet…. those liberties made The Sound of Music a smash hit and a huge success from the very night of its Broadway opening on this day in 1959.

Do Re Mi.  My Favorite Things.  Sixteen Going On Seventeen.  Lots of big hits came out of that show.

(However, one of my favorites is The Lonely Goatherd.  I love the yodel part.)

At any rate, I started all of this because of the “title”… … …. the “sound” of music.  The two are typically associated with one another.  Music=Sound.  Yet, how about our other senses and music.  Can we taste or smell music?  Not too often, I don’t think.

But we do “feel” music all the time.  At least I do.  Sometimes, we can even see it.

So this photograph I took looked like music to me.  I see music in a lot of different places.

At any rate… thanks for sharing this great anniversary.  The Sound & Sight… of Music.

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Interesting addition… the REAL Maria’s Declaration of Intention.  Coolio, eh?