Der Tod - Blog Posts

mayerling

adding onto the fact that i am insane

Elisabeth from Elisabeth das Musical is La Mort from Romeo et Juliette

reasoning?

In Wie Du, Elisabeth is talking to her father about how she wants to go and explore the world and have all sorta of adventures, and going to Verona seems like enough of an adventure to me.

in Elisabeth's sort of postmortem scene, we see her in a white dress, thin and long. La Mort's dress almost looks like it if it was that dress, torn into pieces.

And if Elisabeth is Death's lover/wife/SO post musical, that probably means she absorbs some of his power to be able to kiss people into death, hand them weapons, reveal herself at will.

Specifically, la Mort's muteness and only being a dancer- she will only dance in death's sight (wenn ich tanzen will), so whenever any Veronese peeps see their deaths coming, she reveals herself (or in moments of intense suffering for Comment Lui Dire). Specific to Comment though, Mort is taking Benvolio's suffering and physically moving and stringing him up by it, which totally recalls die Schatten Werden Langer blocking with Rudolf and Tod to me.

Elisabeth's hair is also totally long and fabulous enough for all those hairdos. Her choreo also often obscures her and her face, which is a bit of a callback to Elisabeth always hiding her face with a fan, but that might be a stretch.

@fitzrove fair. I've seen the Dutch version and Rudolf keeps the same way of performing during the whole thing.

More outrageous moments (for everyone interested):

NO MAYERLING KISS :( what happened, Rudolf stood in the centre of the stage, Tod and the ensemble (not even dressed as Todsengelen) around him in a semi-circle. No interaction between Rudolf, Tod, and Ensemble whatsoever. Rudolf puts gun in mouth and falls dead. Tod turns on heels and walks away. The ensemble walks away save for 4 who carry Rudolf away.

DEEPLY DISTURBING THINGS:

"Der Tod" pushing a sigarette in Danique's mouth, while holding her throat. That was in my eyes when they went *too* far. -

"Der Tod" telling Baby Rudolf "I'll stay" when the child said "go away". I loved the German version precisely because Tod was able (for his goals) to "befriend" humans. Here, it looks like child abuse.

What the heck was that heroine needle-

About that ^^ at the end of "Wenn ich tanzen will", during which a music box was playing (brought by Tod), Pia broke the plate-scratching-needle out of the box and "stuck" it in her arm. My friend found from an interview it is meant to represent heroine.

What a weird way to stage the Mayerling -

Overall, I need to say, that "Der Tod" felt here like an abusive, creepy man, instead of a dangerous otherwordly being.

THINGS THAT WERE NOT DISTURBING, BUT DISAPPOINTING:

The Cardinal wasn't peer pressured enough in "Wir oder Sie" :( Usually Sophie (and sometimes the rest of the noblemen) stares him down until he agrees. Here he agreed on his own, and I didn't really like it, because, if it doesn't give any interaction, why have that line at all?

The choreography of "Mama wo bist du", and "Die Schatten". Just...no. There was SO MUCH critique about the Schönbrunn 'whip'-pulling, yet here they do the same with a rope, when suddenly, it's 'cool'. I don't know who's more at fault, the director or the actor, but there is a fine line between something being empathy-invoking and pathetic, and this guy uses this line as a tightrope. <- this is about Rudolf's excessive kneeling and whimpering

The amount of times Elisabeth is thrown on the ground and/or touches her throat. I mean, there is critique about the Elisabeth throw-and-grab during Der Letzte Tanz in the earlier productions. Here she was thrown around even more AND grabbed by the throat. Congratz, producing team.

Hi there! The Dutch Musical Awards were yesterday evening, and they always include some performances from the nominated shows and what else is in the theatre at the moment. And they did "Er valt een zwarte schaduw" (which is "Die Schatzen werden langer" in German?) From Elisabeth the musical! The performance is on YouTube, check it out:

https://youtu.be/Q8nhMQvxxNQ?si=2ujwn4F6NR1e8lpV

Thanks for the link!

Milan sure is doing something (tm) as Death (he's fine, there have been much worse ones in Germany - not sure about that falsetto opt up lmao but idk, he's decent) but wow, these people have zero chemistry😭😭 I don't think the guy that plays Rudolf is even acting or trying to show what the character is feeling in this scene, he's just kind of there???