 Elisabeth at the Theater an der Wien |
I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about this evening’s performance. I saw the show again the following evening, and had a much better view from there, so most of my opinions on the show were formed during that performance instead. For this show, we were up in the standing room area, but we arrived rather late, and there’s really not enough room for all the people that they sell tickets to. So we could literally see about 25% of the stage, and that was pretty much the top of peoples’ heads. 🙂 Okay, perhaps I exaggerate a *little* bit, but it truly is not a great view – I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’d seen the show there before!
One thing I will talk about is the understudy we had this night for der Tod, Steven Seale. This was my third time seeing the show, and my third time seeing an understudy for Death! 🙂 However, he was not even close to living up to Jesper Tydén, whom I saw in Essen. Although a lot of the interpretation of der Tod in this production is a result of the direction (or so I assume, since Máté did many of the same things), I just didn’t get any sense of the power and control that I associate with the role from Steven. His voice is fine, but nothing that blew me away, and I noticed a few times where his pronunciation was off (and if *I* can notice it, that’s a problem! :-).
We also had an understudy for Lucheni, but he was on again the next night, so I’ll talk about him in that review!
The cast:
Elisabeth, Empress of Austria
MAYA HAKVOORT
Death, Elisabeth’s Lover
STEVEN SEALE
Luigi Lucheni, Elisabeth’s Assassin
FERNAND DELOSCH
Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, Elisabeth’s Husband
ANDRÉ BAUER
Princess Sophie, Elisabeth’s mother-in-law
ELSE LUDWIG
Prince Rudolf, Elisabeth’s son
JESPER TYDÉN
Ludovika, Elisabeth’s mother/Frau Wolf
JACQUELINE BRAUN
Max in Bayern, Elisabeth’s father
DENNIS KOZELUH
Gräfin Esterházy/Ensemble
KERSTIN IBALD
Helene von Wittelsbach, Elisabeth’s sister/Ensemble
SIGRID BRANDSTETTER
Kardinalerzbischof Rauscher/Ensemble
HENRIK SEHNERT
Graf Grünne/Ensemble
KARSTEN KAMMEIER
Fürst zu Schwarzenberg/Ensemble
ROBERT MARX
Maximilian von Mexiko/Ensemble
ROB FOWLER
Baron Hübner/Ensemble
BJÖRN BRECKHEIMER
Baron Kempen/Ensemble
NOUD HELL
Fräulein Windisch, eine Irre/Ensemble
NADINE HAMMER
Ungarischer Adliger/Ensemble
LUKAS PERMANSCHLAGER
Ein Professor/Ensemble
JOCHEM FESTE ROOZEMOND
Governess/Ensemble
SUSAN ZEICHNER
Mary Vetsera/Ensemble
LISETTE GROOT
Hofdame/Ensemble
RUTH KRAUS
Fanny Feifalik/Ensemble
TINA SCHÖLTZKE
Todesengel
MELANIE GEMEINER
KEVIN HUDSON
CLAUDIA KRAXNER
GIULIANO MERCOLI
ÁKOS TIHANYI
RITA SEREINIG
Child Rudolf
FLORIAN FEIK
Dirigent
WALTER LOCHMANN