Sound of Music museum opens where the von Trapp story met Hollywood
[September 21, 2026]
By PHILIPP JENNE
SALZBURG, Austria (AP) — An Austrian museum is alive with “The Sound of
Music,” a first-ever venue devoted to the classic 1965 singalong movie
starring Julie Andrews.
The Sound of Music Salzburg museum, situated in an Austrian city famed
for music and perhaps best known as the home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
opened Sunday.
The attendees included Elisabeth von Trapp, granddaughter of Georg and
Agathe von Trapp, whose family story inspired the Rodgers & Hammerstein
musical and Hollywood blockbuster. She continues to give guided tours of
movie sites in Salzburg today.
“It is intimate enough so you really have a beautiful sense of the
storyline of both the Sound of Music and the Trapp family singers — my
relatives. I’m very proud of that,” Elisabeth von Trapp said of the new
museum.
Her father, Werner, was one of the original Trapp Family Singers —
although moviegoers know his character by another name. “My father is
depicted in the movie as Kurt; his name was Werner von Trapp. Just to
set the record straight,” von Trapp said.
Housed in the 17th-century Hellbrunn Palace, where many scenes from the
film were shot, the museum distinguishes the real-life story of the von
Trapp family from that of the 1959 Broadway musical and later the
Hollywood blockbuster.
Set against Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, the story
centers on a governess named Maria who teaches seven children in the von
Trapp family to sing and love music — before falling in love with their
father and her employer, widower Georg von Trapp.
Museum officials note the real von Trapp, a submarine commander in the
Austro-Hungarian navy, was “not a strict paternalist” — as he was
depicted by the film’s leading man, Christopher Plummer — but “a
considerate, albeit much-burdened, father.”
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In this photo taken with a smartphone, people gather in the
exhibition of the new "Sound Of Music Salzburg" museum in Salzburg,
Austria, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Philipp-Moritz Jenne)
 Visitors are treated to nearly 450
objects including props and costumes from the film, cinema posters
and recordings of the music. A centerpiece is the gazebo where
teenagers Liesl von Trapp and her suitor Rolf sing the courtship
duet “Sixteen going on Seventeen.”
Fans of the film — which collected five Oscars including best
picture — have long flocked to Salzburg: Several hundred thousand
visit the city each year.
John and Terry Combs, a couple from Dayton, Ohio, were accompanying
von Trapp on her walking tour through Salzburg.
“I love the combination of it being much about the movie, of course,
but about the real von Trapp family, which I’ve read much about over
the years,” said Terry Combs. “And having met and known Elisabeth a
little bit — it just brought it full circle.”
The new exhibition is open daily until Nov. 1. After a brief bidding
of “So long, farewell” to visitors late this year, the museum is
scheduled to reopen next March.
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