How do you solve a problem like Maria? Well, in historical fiction writer Michelle Moran’s case, you start by digging a whole lot deeper into The Sound of Music, the 1959 Broadway musical adapted for the 1965 film, which  became an international phenomenon. I’m neither proud nor ashamed to admit I’ve probably watched it 500 times,  I can sing every song on the soundtrack and name all seven von Trapp children off the top of my head. 

And yet, how much can any Sound of Music fan tell you about the real Maria von Trapp? Almost nothing, because, even though the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was “based on a true story” – von Trapp’s 1949  autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers – the difference is vast between Broadway Maria and the real-life woman who fell in love with her boss. Von Trapp was neither a nun nor a governess, and most depressing of all, she didn’t immediately love the stern but hunky Austrian navy captain who still factors heavily in my romantic ideals.

Moran was inspired to write the novel during the pandemic when her children became interested in the film, which stars Julie Andrews as Maria and dearly departed Canadian icon Christopher Plummer as Baron Georg von Trapp. And she is well aware she’s operating in dangerous bubble-bursting territory. “People just love the story so much and I didn’t want to ruin that, but I also want people to know there’s so much more to the story, too,” says the Californian novelist who moved to England in 2021.

Like Moran’s other books (Madame Tussaud and Nefertiti), Maria: A Novel of Maria von Trapp tells the story behind the story everyone knows. For that, she read up on the “governess,” beginning with a pair of von Trapp biographies, and then on to the making of The Sound of Music. The result is Maria, another fictionalized take – “ironic, I know,” she says – about von Trapp confronting Hammerstein as he writes the music for the Broadway play and tries to convince him to make it truer to real life. Maria was a novice, not a nun, in a Salzburg abbey when she was hired to tutor a sick von Trapp child, for example. The family didn’t cross the Alps on foot to Switzerland from Salzburg, Austria, either; they took a train to Italy.  (The Hollywood version has the von Trapps headed straight to Nazi-occupied Germany. ) Moran describes what really happened in artful flashbacks as Maria befriends Hammerstein’s secretary, Fran, and shares the real story of her life.

Hold onto your childhood dreams, because Zoomer reached Moran at her new home in Cambridge for an eye-opening chat on the Baroness Maria von Trapp and Moran’s take on Hollywood’s take on the life that became a classic film. 

Rosemary Counter: Be honest: How many times have you watched The Sound of Music?

Michelle Moran: Not as many as a whole lot of people out there. It has become its own entity within the film industry, with an almost cult-like following. I’ve probably watched it about a half dozen times. 

RC: That’s it?  I watched it hundreds of times as a kid. I thought it was called The Noise of Music and nobody corrected me. 

MM: I love that. The movie has the greatest following and longevity. People watch it over and over again, including my kids during the pandemic. So while my kids are driving me nuts, I’m sitting there watching Maria be great friends with all seven kids on the first night. There’s just no way. I started to think, OK, who was this woman really?

RC: I was surprised to learn that in real life, she was so much harder and the captain was so much softer. 

MM: That’s the reason why Maria, in real life, reached out to Hammerstein. The whole family was so angry and upset about how their father was being depicted, and they blamed her because she’d sold the rights [to her memoir] away for something tiny like $10,000. They needed the money desperately, because they weren’t rich like they were in the movie. They were once, but they’d lost all their money. The movie works better if they’re rich, and it works better if she’s kind and he’s grumpy. It really wasn’t like that at all. 

RC: What was the biggest change that Hollywood made? 

MM: Their personalities, for sure. The real captain was a quiet, soft-spoken man. Maria was loud, shouty and wanted things done. She had a drive that couldn’t be matched, including by the children, and it drove a wedge between them in later years. They wanted to get married and have families of their own and quit the industry, but she wouldn’t have it. She became the very definition of a stage mom. Hollywood didn’t tell that part of the story, and rightfully so. 

RC: That’s kind of a bummer, to be honest. I’m glad they didn’t tell me that.

MM: A completely unvarnished Maria would scare people away. She had her reasons, though. She had a traumatic upbringing, her parents died and her uncle was abusive, and she fled to the nunnery to get away from him. She fell in love with the kids, not with the captain, and said so in her book. Her marriage wasn’t a romance; in fact, she didn’t want to marry him and was hoping the nuns wouldn’t allow it. She grew to love him, but it took a while.

RC: That’s not going to work in a movie. I can see why they changed it, and they were right. 

MM: They were, though I don’t think anyone knew how right. Just like you can’t predict what’s going to go viral on TikTok, nobody could predict that this was going to catch on and spread and snowball. If this was possible, every movie would be a blockbuster and every book a bestseller. That said, The Sound of Music was definitely a long shot. A musical? Starring kids? With Nazis? 

RC: Why do you think it worked? 

MM: I’d have to say the music. When they came to Hammerstein, they asked him to write a single song, but he had this great vision for more. He was the king of Broadway, having done 45 musicals and plays. He was sick and he knew he was going to die – and he did, a few weeks after the musical opened. The Sound of Music was his very last one and the critics were so mean and rude about it. He lived to see all that, but not for the human response. He really missed out.