Elisabeth / Elisabeth - Tropes M to Z

Tropes that have appeared in Elisabeth.

For the rest:

• A to L

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• Manipulative Bastard: Death manipulates everybody all so he can win Elisabeth's love.
• Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: "Alle tanzten mit dem Tod" ("Everyone has Danced with Death") has the whole gigantic cast on stage and singing.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In some versions, especially the original 1992 version, Death may only exist in Elisabeth and Rudolf's minds (or in Lucheni's, since he's the narrator), or he may be a real supernatural being that stalks Elisabeth. In other productions Death's existence is much less ambiguous.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Could be considered such because Death is ageless.
• Medium Awareness: Tsukishiro Kanato (2018, Takarazuka)'s Lucheni asks the audience if they've noticed a camera today, says he too has noticed a camera, and then asks the cameraperson to come closer and make sure he looks handsome.
• Melancholy Musical Number:
  • "Wenn ich dein Spiegel wär": Rudolf sadly musing about his (lack of a) relationship with his mother, even though they are so similar.
  • "Totenklage/Rudolf, wo bist du?": Sisi mourning her son and regretting that her refusal to help him was his Despair Event Horizon. The Takarazuka productions follow this up with a reprise of Ai to Shi no Rondo, which is Death being upset about his unreciprocated feelings and that Sisi tried to use him as an escape from her grief.
  • "Boote in der Nacht": Franz and Sisi arriving at the conclusion that they're not meant to be.
• Mind-Control Eyes:
  • Rudolf's expression during "Yami ga hirogaru" in the 2016 Toho production flickers rapidly between unnatural blankness and evident distress. Every time Death's hand gets near his face/head, his eyes briefly unfocus. It shows up again in Mayerling.
  • Same thing with Sisi during "Ai to Shi no Rondo", too.
• Mind Control:
  • Most obvious with Shirota Yuu and Furukawa Yuta's portrayal of Death and Rudolf. Yuu's Death seems to be able to control humans telepathically/telekinetically, but can reinforce the control through touch (as mentioned in Mind-Control Eyes above).
  • In the same production, Sisi (Hanafusa Mari) slowly grows out of vulnerability to Death's power:
    • Young Sisi in the realm of Death is easily controlled, dancing along with the Angels, falling unconscious when Death waves a hand in front of her face.
    • She's visibly fighting him (looking terrified and in pain, clutching at her head) in "Saigo no Dansu" ("Der letzte Tanz") but flickers in and out of it at some points.
    • She doesn't seem to be affected at all in the first act's version of "Yami ga hirogaru" ("Die Schatten werden länger"), only grieving for baby Sophie. Notable for Death getting up close to her, grabbing her wrist, and whispering into her ear (she flinches at this).
    • "Watashi ga odoru toki" ("Wenn ich tanzen will") sees Sisi triumphant, out of Death's reach for almost the entirety of the song. She easily breaks out of his physical contact, and maintains a victorious smile throughout. She even Trolls him by pretending to take his hand when he offers it, and then actually pulling away before they touch.
• A Minor Kidroduction: Elisabeth is 14 when we first see her; Rudolf is about six the first time and then reappears at about eleven before we finally see him as a young man. (It varies from production to production whether or not the same child actor plays him as a small child and again as a preteen. Takarazuka cuts the younger Rudolf altogether, only showing preteen Rudolf during Mama, wo bist du - albeit played by an adult actress.)
• Mood Whiplash: "Nichts ist schwer" ("Nothing is Hard"), a tender love song between teenage Sisi and Franz Joseph, is immediately followed by the Ominous Pipe Organ of "Alle Fragen sind gestellt" ("All Questions Have Been Asked"), which doubles as Soundtrack Dissonance since it's the accompaniment to their wedding (and thus the first foreshadowing that things will not end well). The original production made the whiplash even harder by having the lovers suddenly collapse like puppets with cut strings as soon as "Nichts ist schwer" ended.
• Momma's Boy: Oh, Franz Joseph. Sophie, in her misguided way, wants the best for him. It's too bad Sisi and Rudolf got caught in the crossfire. Franz stands up to her twice: once in "Ich gehör nur mir (Reprise)" when he overrides the Queen Mother to give Sisi final say on how her children are raised, and called his mother out in "Streit Mütter und Sohn/Mama, ich bin ausser mir" for her maltreatment of Sisi and her attempts to break his marriage in the name of throne and country. It's too little, too late for his wife and son.
• More than Mind Control: Death seems to have this type of influence over Rudolf. They first meet while little Rudolf is sadly calling to his mother, and their first exchange translates to
  Death: She can't hear you. Don't call to her.
  Rudolf: Who are you?
  Death: I am a friend. When you need me, I'll come to you. (Moves as though to leave)
  Rudolf: Stay!
  Death: I'll stay close.
  • And little Rudolf's proud statement of "Yesterday I killed a cat!" seems to imply that he realizes that his new friend is Death incarnate, but trusts him. And Rudolf still completely trusts Death when he shows up again 18 YEARS LATER. Death then makes his More Than Mind Control even stronger with "Die Schatten werden langer."
  • In most productions, the choreography of "Die Schatten werden langer" includes Death physically grabbing Rudolf and manipulating his actions, usually not very gently. In at least one production, Death pulls Rudolf closer without even touching him, apparently through some form of telekinesis. Aside from dodging the lethal kisses Death attempts to give him, Rudolf doesn't resist this manipulation. In the Takarazuka version, Rudolf actively reaches for Death's hand or otherwise deliberately puts himself in a position that makes the direct physical manipulation possible. Multiple times.
    • A dance move prevalent in many productions is Death dragging Rudolf forward, Rudolf fighting back, but his feet keep inching towards Death.
• Musicalis Interruptus: Happens in the Takarazuka productions during a reprise of "Ich gehör nur mir" when Lucheni takes a picture of the Empress.
• My Beloved Smother: Sophie.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rudolf, where are you? Can you hear me calling?
• Napoleon Delusion: Elisabeth visits an insane asylum and meets a patient who believes that she herself is the empress. Elisabeth envies the woman's happiness in her role.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • The Takarazuka version paints Sisi's refusal to intercede on Rudolf's behalf as stemming from her disappointment that he's asking her to solve a (political) issue ^note which was something Franz Joseph did and part of the reason their marriage deteriorated, with her telling him that he's an adult now and should deal with his own issues. Sounds like a reasonable thing for a mother to say, but it was the final straw that drove Rudolf to suicide.
  • Sisi's attempt to take back her independence and spend time with her daughters (who had been taken away from her by Sophie) backfired, leading to Gisela's illness and little Sophie's death.
• No Fourth Wall: For Lucheni, at least.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Sophie. She starts out complaining that Elisabeth isn't suited to Franz Joseph (and to be fair, she's right) and ends up sending Franz Joseph to a brothel just to weaken Elisabeth's influence.
• Obsession Song: Death, three times, all of the aggressive type.
  • "Die Schatten werden länger", act 1. "You need me. Yes, you need me."
  • He actually gets physically aggressive with Sisi during "Der letzte Tanz" and "Wenn ich tanzen will": dancing violently, throwing her around, kneeling between her legs and leaning in very close to her face, grabbing her by the wrists/hands and then the back of the head... All of this is done while he reiterates that no one loves/understands her as he does, she is free only through him, and she will want him/be his eventually.
  • "Ai to Shi no Rondo", added for the Japanese production and eventually made its way back to the German production as "Rondo - Schwarzer Prinz", has Death saying that he will pursue Elisabeth until he wins her love.
• Oh, Crap!: The Toho production has a lot of these moments.
  • The arresting police officers panicking when they realized they nearly threw the Crown Prince in jail.
  • Rudolf, pushed to the floor (either shoved by Inoue Yoshio's Death, or flicked by Shirota Yuu's Death), makes a horrified face and frantically backs away when Death gets in his personal space.
  • Rudolf seems to come to his senses from Death's Mind Control in Mayerling and tries to make a break for it as what he is about to do sinks in. Death hauls him back telekinetically, and Rudolf - quite possibly no longer of his own volition - frantically begs Death for the gun.
  • In a funny moment, Lucheni made this face when he got caught in the middle of Sophie and Max's argument in "Sie passt nicht".
• Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: The Takarazuka Revue production gives this to the leads (Death and Sisi). They are Together in Death (well, when one's love interest/Stalker with a Crush is Death...), and the show ends with Death showing Sisi the underworld that she will (implicitly) be queen of, and he having gotten the girl. How do the other major characters fare? Franz Joseph outlives his wife (who he loved unconditionally, but she eventually ceased to return his affection) by decades. Sophie dies without much fanfare. The Hungarian revolutionaries are arrested. Rudolf has been Driven to Suicide.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Elisabeth and Franz Joseph live to witness the death of their infant daughter and, later, Rudolf's suicide.
  • A peasant mother comes to beg Franz Joseph to spare the life of her revolutionary son, who has been sentenced to death for treason. Her efforts fail.
  • Sophie's second oldest son, Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, is shown at the end being executed by Mexican revolutionaries.
• The Ophelia: Sisi visits mental hospitals in her spare time. At one of them, a patient named Windisch proceeds to loudly claim that she is the true Empress Elisabeth and Sisi is an impostor who should be locked up. Productions often have Windisch's long hair braided like the empress' famous hair, with flowers to imitate the star-shaped hair decorations in the famous Winterhalter portrait, if not recreating a mad version of said portrait altogether. In the 2018 Takarazuka Revue production, Windisch carries a tattered white fan that the black-clad Empress exchanges for her black one. Elisabeth envies Windisch and wishes she could openly be The Ophelia.
• Parental Abandonment: Elisabeth is actively prevented from having a hand in raising her son Rudolf; upon realizing this, she stops trying to have one. As an aging woman, she finally realizes her father, Max, whom she idolized, was emotionally (and frequently physically) absent from her life and never gave her the emotional support she craved from him.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Death's doctor costume. Some actors don't even wear a hat, making it even more obvious. Justified, though, since he's Death, and so presumably has some way to prevent Elisabeth recognising him. Averted with Shirota Yuu, who actually pitches his voice lower, growls, and has a cane, a limp, and his back to the audience.
  • His disguise as Mary Vetsera during the Mayerling Waltz is also quite obvious in some productions.
• Pep-Talk Song: Oddly enough, "Die Schatten werden länger (Reprise)" has Death encouraging Rudolf to take action and rebel against his father. The Takarazuka and Toho productions have "Verschwörung" follow it, which has the straighter example of the revolutionaries giving Rudolf another pep talk to the same end.
• Pet the Dog: Takarazuka has Sisi embracing Miss Windisch (the woman at the asylum). Manaki Reika (2018 production)'s Sisi exchanged her fine black fan for the woman's tattered one.
• Perspective Flip: Takarazuka's main draw being the male roles, they needed to make Death the main character, so Levay collaborated with Takarazuka to compose the song Ai To Shi No Rondo/Kein Kommen Ohne Geh'n which humanized Death and placed his emotional journey at the center of the story. Strangely, the Hungarian version with a far more inhuman Death used the song as well.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Death usually holds Elisabeth this way at the very end.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You:
  • Rudolf running after the angels and/or begging Death for the gun in some productions. He obliges.
  • Sisi finally giving in and begging Death to Mercy Kill her after Rudolf's death. He does not oblige this time - he straight up turns her away in disgust after he hears her begging in the German productions. The Japanese production has him going in for the Kiss of Death first, before realizing she's just using him to get out of her grief.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege!: A mother tries to save her son - whose only offense was, according to her, yelling "Freedom" - from execution by pleading Franz Joseph for his mercy. If it weren't for Sophie, it would've worked.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Franz Joseph's inability to communicate/mediate between his mother and wife causes much consternation. It arguably causes the death of little Sophie, because if there hadn't been such a rift between Sophie the elder and Sisi, the Empress might not have insisted on her daughters accompanying her to Hungary.
  • Sisi's unwillingness/inability to understand Rudolf's desperate situation is the last straw that drives him to suicide. The Japanese productions have her explicitly misjudge the situation as only political, and one Rudolf can get out of on his own because he's an adult capable of handling things maturely - making her more sympathetic than merely turning him away because she has cut her bonds with the Emperor.
• Pose of Supplication: In the Takarazuka version, Rudolf kneels and clings to Death a lot, in both Die Schatten and Mayerling. In the original German production, Rudolf also kneels and buries his face in Death's lap/thigh.
  • In one live performance of Die Schatten werden länger at Musical Meets Opera, because there was no carriage, der Tod (Mark Seibert) stood while Rudolf (Anton Zetterholm) clung bodily to one leg.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: There's an example that overlaps with the Kiss of Death in the Toho production with Shirota Yuu as Death and Furukawa Yuta as Rudolf. Inverted in that Rudolf is the one that initiates the kiss, and also the one who's left staring blankly as Death walks away. He then shoots himself.
• The Power of Love: Invoked by Franz Joseph during Boote in der Nacht when he visits Sisi during one of her wanderings and tries to get her to return home by saying that love can heal anything, to which Sisi says that they weren't meant to be.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Depending on the production, the Mayerling Waltz can either look like cold-blooded murder, Driven to Suicide, or this.
• Psychotic Smirk: Except for one lapse in self control, Mark Seibert's Death wore this constantly on his face during Der letzte Tanz, whether he's violently dancing with Sisi, invading her personal space, or just generally gloating. Enjoy.
• Punch a Wall: During Der letzte Tanz, as his seduction is continually rebuffed by a frightened Elisabeth, Mark Seibert's Death storms off, punches or kicks a wall, and yells in frustration between verses before resuming his smooth sultry act. This was captured on the 2012 cast recording.
• Queer Romance: Regardless of Death's ulterior motive or attitude towards Rudolf, there is still a seduction scene/subplot.
• Quizzical Tilt: Shirota Yu's Death is fond of this, as his take on the character is an inhuman being intrigued by humans.
• Rays from Heaven: During the ending as performed by Pia Douwes and Uwe Kröger, these rays shine down on Elisabeth and Death when he comes for her after her assassination. This shows how, in death, she has the freedom she had always longed for. She has hope, she can go up to the sky.
• Rebellious Princess: Elisabeth fits this trope like a glove fits a hand. Considering the way her story ends, could be a deconstruction.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: This trope gradually creeps up over the course of the show — the common people are shown progressing from being innocent trampled victims of the upper class to the scapegoating predecessors of Those Wacky Nazis in their growing distaste for the old order.
• Rewatch Bonus: The musical reuses melodies in a completely different context. The most notable example is the music played at Elisabeth's wedding in act one, which towards the end of act two is played again at Rudolf's suicide. Also at Elisabeth's wedding, the tune of the song her guests sing is given new lyrics and reused in act two as her husband cheats on her. Watching the show more than once turns the wedding music into especially grim Foreshadowing.
• Romantic False Lead: Elisabeth's elder sister Helene, for all of about five minutes. Given that the musical isn't named after her, we know in advance how this'll end. Though Helene exits the stage with sadness at her wasted efforts, in real life she actually found a much happier marriage than that of Elisabeth and Franz Joseph.
• Royal Inbreeding: Franz Joseph is set up with two of his first cousins and ends up marrying one (Elisabeth).
• Royally Screwed Up: During "An Deck der sinkenden Welt" ("On the Deck of the Sinking World"), Lucheni lists all of Elisabeth's family members who've gone crazy or died of unnatural causes.
  • Then there's the main characters: Elisabeth, who ends up well and truly broken by the end; Franz Joseph; Sophie; and Rudolf, who is possibly the only character more miserable than Elisabeth. And then there's Death, who is royalty of some sort (Lucheni calls him "His Majesty", and the Japanese versions call him "Lord of the Underworld") and is certainly very screwed-up.
• Rule of Symbolism: The Vienna stagings run heavily on this, every which way, from the necklace Franz Joseph gives Elisabeth to seal their engagement looking like a heavy gold noose to the fact that Rudolf's ghost appears as his child-self still weeping for his mother to comfort him after all this time.
  • The 2005 Vienna revival is very fond of puppet symbolism/imagery. Lucheni is the puppeteer and the dead the puppets in the prologue, Death is the puppeteer to Elisabeth and Rudolf in "Wenn ich tanzen will" and "Die Schatten werden länger" respectively, and there is a moment in "Am Deck der sinkenden Welt," when Death briefly plays puppetmaster to Lucheni after throwing him the file, and Lucheni falls limply to the ground when Death breaks his hold.
• Sanity Slippage Song: Subverted, in that "Nichts, Nichts, Gar Nichts" ("Nothing, Nothing, Nothing At All") is the song in which Elisabeth makes a conscious decision NOT to go mad, however tempting the prospect.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
  • Toho Rudolf got out of being arrested by revealing his identity. "Rudolf..." [reluctantly] "Habsburg." Cue the arresting officers going Oh, Crap! at the fact that they were about to throw the Crown Prince in jail.
  • In the Takarazuka production, the guards recognize Rudolf without prompting, but only after they've grabbed him and pointed rifles at him.
• Shirtless Scene:
  • In the Hungarian production, a dancer - possibly Mary Vetsera's stand-in - rips Rudolf's shirt off. It's hanging at his waist when he receives the kiss of Death.
  • The Todesengels in the Toho productions are shirtless in almost all of their appearances in Act 2. In the same productions, Death is technically never shirtless, but his shirts don't leave a lot to the imagination either.
• Shout-Out:
  • Tamaki Ryou's Death (Takarazuka, 2018) is examining a skull as his angels bring Elisabeth to the underworld. Might double as Actor Allusion, as Tama had played Laertes in Zuka's adaptation of Hamlet.
  • Death and Sisi's conversation at the end of "Elisabeth, mach auf" sounds like an expanded version of Schubert's lied "Der Tod und das Mädchen" (Death and the Maiden) with Death speaking first. It's also emphasized in the staging, with Sisi wearing white (for Rule of Symbolism as she is technically no longer a maiden, and this song marks one of her turning points in Character Development), and Death in black reaching out for her.
• Soprano and Gravel: Máté Kamarás' raspy voice (although still tenor) creates this contrast in "Wenn ich tanzen will".
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Elisabeth and Franz Joseph's wedding scene is performed as a morbid funeral march.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Presumably happens to Elisabeth's daughter Sophie in the Takarazuka versions. Her illness and death are never mentioned, but she never appears again.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: "Sie möchte, dass Franz Joseph sich mit Helene... trifft."
• Sung-Through Musical: The only spoken lines are when Lucheni provides exposition for the audience, Liechtenstein talking to "Doctor Seeburger", and a few words by Franz Joseph at the beginning of "Boote in der Nacht". Takarazuka and Toho have more spoken lines, though.
• Swing Low, Sweet Harriet: For the Elisabeth in Concert productions, the titular character falls off a swing (pushed by Death) instead of a tightrope.
• Take That!: "Kitsch" has these lines: "But what she really was like/ is something that you'll never learn from any book or movie" - the movies meant are, of course, the Sissi trilogy with Romy Schneider.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • In the song "Kitsch", Lucheni mocks the audience for expecting a pretty fairy tale about the lovely empress and her handsome husband. Note that the audiences of the original production went in expecting exactly that.
  • Uwe Kröger, the original Death, went into his audition thinking it was an adaptation of the 1950s "Sissi" films and hoping to be cast as Franz Joseph, so the show kind of surprised everyone with its Darker and Edgier approach.
• Time-Shifted Actor:
  • Rudolf is double-cast as a child and adult. The two selves show up side by side in the opening number.
  • Usually averted with Sisi even though the show covers her life from teen years to old age. The 2022 Elisabeth in Concert is the first production to double-cast Abla Alaoui and Maya Hakvoort as teenage and adult Sisi. In the middle of "Ich gehör nur mir", young Sisi tries to climb the set but is swarmed by attendants. Adult Sisi then emerges from the crowd.
• Time Skip: Several of them. Justified, as the show covers Elisabeth's life from age 14 to her death at 61.
• Together in Death: Or with Death in this case.
• Trailers Always Spoil: This trailer blatantly shows the Mayerling Waltz. (Sisi's death doesn't count, because Lucheni says "I killed her because she wanted to die," some several seconds into the video.) It's not much of a spoiler for German/Austrian audiences, or people familiar with that era, because both the Empress' Impaled with Extreme Prejudice and the Crown Prince's Murder-Suicide is well-known. Outside of that, though, viewers caught unaware (especially those who have issues with viewing gun violence and suicide) are in for a potential shock. The trailer narrator even says, "It's more than a show, it's history."
• Troubled Fetal Position:
  • The Takarazuka choreography for Yami ga hirogaru has Death breaking Rudolf out of this.
  • A distressed Sisi starts Ich gehör nur mir in this.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Oh, Rudolf. "Yesterday I killed a cat!" The blow is softened because he clarifies it with "I can be hard and evil like the world is, but sometimes I would rather be soft." - implying that he may not have wanted to do it, or taken any joy in it.
• True Love's Kiss: Also serves as the Kiss of Death in this case.
• The Dead Can Dance: Shown in the awesome "Prologue".
• The Unfair Sex: Averted, in that it's hard to blame Franz Joseph for seeking out a prostitute's affections when Elisabeth ignores him as much as she does.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: When the young Elisabeth wakes up in the arms of Death after her fall, she implores "her dark prince" not to leave her, saying she felt good in his arms. He leaves, but comes back to gloat at her wedding that he'll win her in the end, when she's no longer interested. While mourning, Elisabeth calls out to him (mostly out of desperation), but he won't have her anymore. In the end, though, it works out... in a way.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: All over the place, with some plot points being based on mere hearsay. It's partially justified by the fact that Lucheni is an Unreliable Narrator, with a vested interest in driving the Judge (and the audience, by extension) against Sisi.
  • Sophie was more of a Knight Templar Parent in real life than the Evil Matriarch of the show. She also initially got along with Sisi, instead of disapproving of her from day one.
  • Franz Joseph never secretly cheated on Sisi, or gave her an STD. She actually encouraged and endorsed his relationship with Katharina Schratt. Rudolf was the one rumored to have syphilis - which he might have passed onto his wife, Stéphanie.
  • The meeting at Bad Ischl was not a Love at First Sight incident on Sisi's part. She was inconsolable at the death of a Count Richard S., who she had fallen in love with. Ludovika took her to Bad Ischl in hopes of pulling her out of sorrow. (Franz Joseph, however, did instantly become infatuated with her, which she was initially oblivious about.)
  • The show cut out Rudolf's more unsavory actions. He had an obsession with death and violence that escalated as he aged ^note aside from aristocratic hunting, he also sought out dying people to see the light leave their eyes, and went to graveyards and funerals. In his feeble defense, he was encouraged to take an interest in bloodshed because his father wanted him to be a soldier., utilized a spy ring (incidentally, run by Madame Wolf), had multiple lovers ^note and even brought one to his wedding, and, as a 30-year-old, coerced the 17-year-old Mary Vetsera into Murder-Suicide. ^note Vetsera was a last resort. Prior to her, he had asked Stéphanie and another lover, Mizzi (or Mitzi) Caspar, to die with him. They both refused.
    • That being said, he did write firebrand articles anonymously, but stopped short of participating in a public demonstration (as the Toho and Takarazuka versions have it). The question of his disinheriting was never brought up, either. ^note There has been accounts, however, of Franz Joseph and Rudolf quarreling before Mayerling, with some stating that it was over Mary Vetsera. While he was a hunter and naturalist, he also did not kill any cat (that we know of.) Here's Rudolf as a young boy, with a cat.◊
  • Sisi did become cynical and depressed, but she continued having flirtations with men, in a "look but don't touch" way, never letting them get emotionally close to her.
  • The show portrays Sisi leaving Franz Joseph shortly after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, but in reality they still lived together as a married couple for quite some time; in fact, Sisi gave birth to their last child Marie Valerie during that time period. Sisi didn't become estranged from her husband until after Rudolf's death in 1889, but even then she would still spend some of her time living in Vienna with her family.
  • The Takarazuka Revue added the supernatural element of Death taking the knife that Sisi tried to kill herself with in "Watashi dake ni" (Ich gehör nur mir), showing it to her later on, and handing it to Lucheni to use as her murder weapon. It also painted her death as her being Driven to Suicide to reunite with Death and finally be free of her suffering. In real life (and other productions), Lucheni stabbed her with a file, and everyone (including Sisi) were unaware of the fact until she fainted and her outer clothing was undone, revealing the wound.
• Villain Opening Scene: It's hard to tell who's the real villain, but the prologue starts with Lucheni on trial for assassinating Elisabeth and ends with Death singing about his love for Elisabeth.
• Villain Song: Almost every song could be seen as this, depending on your point of view, but the most obvious examples are "Der letzte Tanz", "Kitsch", "Hass", and "Die Schatten werden länger".
• Villain Recruitment Song: "Die Schatten werden länger". Especially overt in productions that have Rudolf's rebellion subplot, because Death is present at every point of Rudolf's involvement with the Hungarians, pulling the strings - Rudolf is essentially working for Death after "Die Schatten".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Gisela, Elisabeth's second child, is mentioned in "Die ersten vier Jahre" and "Elisabeth, mach auf mein Engel", then disappears from the story.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Death falls in love with Sisi, spends a song mulling it over ^note the solo "Ai to Shi no Rondo"/"The Rondo of Love and Death", created for the Takarazuka Revue production, and made its way back into the German as the duet "Rondo/Schwarzer Prinz (Black Prince)", and decides that loving her means pursuing her wherever she goes and persuading her to die so she could be with him.
• "What Now?" Ending: The very last shot of the Toho DVD is Death, having kissed Sisi, looking at the camera with a stunned, lost expression. Cut to black.
• White Shirt of Death: Although there's no blood, after she's been stabbed, Sisi takes off her black mourning coat, revealing the white dress she wore as a teenage girl and runs to embrace Death.
• Would Hurt a Child: Death kills Elisabeth's daughter Sophie, and in the Toho productions he aims a gun at young Rudolf. Furukawa Yuta's Death offers the gun to the boy, holding it by the barrel, to foreshadow the Mayerling Waltz.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Some Deaths go for this in Mayerling. Furukawa Yuta's Death is quite sad about Rudolf's failure to be much of a challenge, but it doesn't stop him from slapping Kyomoto Taiga's Rudolf or failing to reciprocate the kiss from Miura Ryosuke's Rudolf. Even the one he seemed to hate least, Tatsunari Kimura's Rudolf, only got Death looking at him as he shot himself ("seeing him off") as a "reward".

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