Marian Anderson

What's the connection?

According to Agathe's memoir, the Trapp family once performed at the same concert hall - but on a different stage - as the famed contralto. Here is her description:

We sang again twice in Vienna [in the 1936-37 season], and while we performed in the small concert hall, the famous American contralto Marian Anderson sang in the large hall in the same building. During the intermission, reviewers wandered over to see what was going on at our concert and what this dirndl-clad family was all about.

According to Agathe, the critics were "delighted" with what they heard in the small hall and sang the praises of "das holde Wunder der Familie Trapp." Or the "lovely miracle" of the Trapp family.

Some context. Anderson had come to Austria the prior year (1935) with the intention of performing at the Salzburg festival. According to this excellent biography, she was sponsored by the Archbishop of Salzburg but was denied an invitation to perform at the Festival. Her manager vigorously protested her exclusion, writing:

When every summer, singers of different nationalities appear in Salzburg, and when Marian Anderson is known throughout the world as one of the finest and most distinguished lieder singers . . . all the more must we be given a reason why permission [for her to sing] has not been granted. [I wonder] whether it is perhaps her dark complexion?

After his complaints, a concert was arranged at the Mozarteum, although not as an official part of the festival. The New York Times reported the climb down as part of an article headlined: "Idiom of Times Square Rules in Salzburg." Reviewing her performance on August 28, 1935, the Times noted: "The disturbances which in the past two months were alleged to threaten if a colored artist chose to tempt fate by giving a concert were not even hinted this evening." Herbert Peyser, the Times critic,  added:

One was persuaded afresh that Miss Anderson is not only one of the greatest living singers but that even with whatever flaws and racial peculiarities her vocalism may disclose, she has exceedingly few rivals in point of schooling, virtuosity and ability to encompass the grand manner.

The performance so impressed the audience and critics that a second recital was arranged at which Toscanini and Bruno Walter were present. Both came backstage to congratulate Anderson. Toscanini said: "What I heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years."

After a return to the U.S., which included a recital at the White House for the Roosevelts, Anderson again toured Europe in 1936, beginning in Spain which was on the brink of civil war. Her Vienna performance noted above - with the Vienna Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter - included the Alto Rhapsody by Brahms. The Times again was lavish in its praise, noting that one Vienna newspaper had commented, "what would Brahms have said if he could have known that his rhapsody would be sung by a Negress?" The Times rejoined:

Well, Brahms would probably have been overjoyed could he have heard how she sang it - with what intuitive grasp of its poignantly human message . . ..

Aside from the unintended boost that Marion Anderson gave to the Trapp family, her travails show that the Salzburg festival in the mid 1930s - indeed all of Austria - was the center of a political and cultural struggle between the totalitarians and the defenders of a more open society. The Salzburg festival attracted dozens of artists who fled or left Nazi Germany - like Bruno Walter and Lotte Lehmann - or who refused to perform there - like Toscanini. And then there was Marion Anderson who struggled to get a hearing both at Constitution Hall and in Salzburg.

And it was in the midst of this struggle, at the Salzburg festival in 1936, that the Trapp family first performed. When the forces of racism and totalitarianism finally triumphed in Salzburg and Austria in 1938, the Trapps, like hundreds of other artists before and after them, were forced into exile.