Nelly Walter

In his book The World of the Trapp Family, William Anderson describes the important role that Nelly Walter played in the discovery of the Trapp Family by American audiences. He quotes Walter herself:

It was I who discovered the Trapp Family when I was in Vienna before Hitler marched in. I asked the great Mr. [Francis] Coppicus [agent for Lotte Lehmann] who came regularly to Europe  . . . to do me the favor and listen to the Trapps. I even took a special hall for this audition. His reaction was "How can you imagine that I can bring them to New York with that kind of attire?" I was very disappointed since the Trapps had come to Vienna at their own expense and money was very tight with them.

Walter then turned to Charles Wagner. Agathe takes up the story:

Mr. Wagner, a prominent concert manager in New York City, arrived at our door, asking to hear us sing. We gave Mr. Wagner a little recital, and when we finished, he asked if we could sing the Brahms "Lullaby" for him. Of course, we could, and by the time we sang the last note, there were tears in this distinguished man's eyes.

Despite Georg's misgivings, the family were signed by Wagner for a fourteen concert tour running from the fall of 1938 through March 1939.  Agathe places the signing during the 1937 Salzburg festival. Walter says she softened Wagner up with a carriage horse ride through Salzburg.

Walter's life was perhaps even more full of incident than the Trapps'.

 In 1933 she had to leave Germany for her own safety, because she was Jewish. She went to Vienna and continued her work. While she was there, Miss Walter arranged the first recital tour of Alice Tully. When Hitler invaded Austria, she went to Prague where her friend, famed conductor George Szell was music director of the opera. When the Nazi tide swept over Czechoslovakia, Nelly managed to get to Paris. There she met Francis Poulenc, American composer Virgil Thomson and other prominent musical figures. When the Germans marched into Paris, she and her mother escaped and went into hiding in Marseilles where she was among those captured and transported to a concentration camp. Many difficult years passed before the Americans landed in Marseilles, when she escaped into the hands of the U.S. Army. Nelly worked for them as a purchasing agent in the Quartermaster Corps—the only foreigner and the only female. Her efficiency was rewarded with a visa to America.

Nelly Walter arrived in New York June 11, 1946. Her former boss in Europe, Andre Mertens, (then the vice president of Columbia Artists) gave her a job after she had been in the country only a few days. Her extensive background and experience in classical music made her an enormous asset to the company, and she was given several artists to manage: Munch, Neveu, Kapell, and Leonard Bernstein.

The Trapp Family Sings Bach 75 years ago

War Bonds

I came across an exhibit of Austrian war bond posters today at the Neue Galerie. This poster caught my eye:

(Apologies for the poor quality of the photo).

Austria-Hungary began issuing war bonds in November 1914 and did so at six month intervals thereafter. It seems likely this poster dates from the second bond issue in May 1915. This would have been shortly after Georg von Trapp's submarine sunk the French armored cruiser Leon Gambetta. The sinking was an enormous boost to Austrian morale which had been battered by a series of setbacks in the land war with Serbia and Russia. Over 600 French soldiers and sailors were lost. As Agathe wrote:

When the news of his extraordinary accomplishment reached the mainland, Georg von Trapp was considered a hero by the civilian population. Schoolgirls sent him congratulatory letters, and postcards were printed with his photograph and that of the U-5.

The Trapps Are Coming!!!

In the next few weeks, I'll try and post some news accounts of the Trapps' first months in the United States. Let's begin with a UP story that appeared in 1937 announcing the family's upcoming tour of the United States:

Corpus Christi (TX) Caller Times - October 15, 1937

The same story ran in newspapers in Indiana, Utah  and New York. 

In fact, the first US tour by the Von Trapps was arranged after their Salzburg and Vienna concerts in 1937. According to Agathe's memoir:

A freelance agent named Nelly Walter, who had heard us sing in Vienna, urged her friend Charlie Wagner from America to listen to us during the festival. Mr. Wagner, a prominent concert manager in New York City, arrived at our door, asking to hear us sing. We gave Mr. Wagner a little recital, and when we finished, he asked us if we could sing the Brahms "Lullaby" for him. Of course, we could, and by the time we sang the last note, there were tears in this distinguished man's eyes.

We'll return to Wagner and Walter a bit later. But for now back to London.  The concert at the Austrian Embassy was attended by Queen Mary. According to Agathe, the Queen "listened to us, said a few friendly words, and then left." The Austrian ambassador at the time was the unhappily named Georg von Franckenstein. After the Anschluss, Franckenstein, like the Trapps, abandoned his native country. He accepted British citizenship and a knighthood.

During the war, von Franckenstein was an agent for the OSS. He was urged to seek the presidency of the Second Austrian Republic after the war. He declined and lived in England until his death in 1953.