A gender-bent Death falls in love with an empress—only Takarazuka could make murder this operatically horny.
In the realm of the dead, Luigi Lucheni is on trial for the assassination of Empress Elisabeth. The disembodied voice of the judge rings out, demanding to know why Lucheni killed her. Lucheni responds, in his own defense, that he was doing her a favor as Elisabeth and Death were lovers. He calls upon the ghosts of Elisabeth's family and friends to corroborate this statement. Death appears in their midst, a pale, androgynous, eternally youthful man who admits that he was in love with Elisabeth.
Production
All-female cast embodying desire and doom.
Costume
Death's androgynous glamour is devastating.
Direction
Ueda Keiko stages the afterlife like a fever dream.
Director
Ueda Keiko
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Takarazuka's otokoyaku (male-role actresses) have obsessed Japanese audiences since 1914—Der Tod is the genre at its most dangerously seductive.
The real Elisabeth of Bavaria was murdered by Lucheni in 1898; this musical, and this film, transform historical tragedy into erotic myth.
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