The Sound of Music Matriarch is Maria, a five-letter name. Maria is the main character in the 1965 musical film The Sound of Music, based on the 1959 Broadway musical of the same name. She is a young Austrian woman who leaves an Austrian convent to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer, Captain von Trapp. Maria eventually marries the Captain and together they escape the Nazis. Maria is portrayed as a loving, caring mother figure to the von Trapp children and a devoted wife to the Captain.