DESCRIPTION:
Wien 29.08.1992 dress rehearsal

Mein neues Sortiment | Boote in der Nacht | An Deck der sinkenden Welt | Der Schleier fällt
__________

EXPOSITION/NOTES:
[28] Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and his 17-year-old lover Baroness Mary Vetsera died on 30 January 1889 in what is considered to be a murder-suicide pact and known as the Mayerling Incident.
His death caused Franz-Joseph I's nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to become first in line to the throne of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Franz Ferdinand is perhaps best known as the man whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 kickstarted the WWI.

[29] Maximillian I (1832 – 1867)
Younger brother of Emperor Franz-Joseph. Accepted Napoleon III's offer to move to Mexico where he declared himself Emperor in 1864 and was executed by firing squad three years later.

[30] Maria von Wittelsbach (1841 - 1925)
Elisabeth's younger sister. By all accounts a rather unhappy lady with an equally unhappy marriage.

[31] Ludwig von Wittelsbach (1845 – 1886)
Elisabeth's cousin. Known as an eccentric with a love for extravagant artistic and architectural projects. Declared insane and deposed in 1886, died in unknown circumstances. Body found floating in a lake near his residence at the time.

[32] Sophie von Wittelsbach (1847 – 1897)
Elisabeth's youngest sister, died in a fire of the Bazar de la Charité in Paris, during a charity event.

[33] Elisabeth, Empress of Austria died on the 10 September 1898 after being fatally stabbed in the heart with a stiletto improvised out of a sharpened needle file. Perhaps thanks to her practice of lacing her corsets very tightly the injury wasn't immediately detected and it took half an hour for her to die.
Ironically, first recorded successful treatment of this exact kind of injury was achieved by dr Ludwig Rehn in Frankfurt am Main exactly two years and one day before that date.

__________

CAST:
Pia Douwes (Elisabeth), Uwe Kröger (Death), Ethan Freeman (Luigi Lucheni), Viktor Gernot (Franz-Joseph), Else Ludwig (Sophie), Andreas Bieber (Rudolf)