In the organizer's words:

SISSI

Closer than ever

The musical highlight - an in-house production by the Hoftheater

The musical Sissi - as close as never before offers a captivating reinterpretation of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, revealing her deep tragedy and emotional turmoil. From the creative pen of author and composer Georg Stampfer and directed by Dominik Am Zehnhoff-Söns comes a production that goes deeper than the glossy surfaces of historical narratives and leads straight to the heart of the legendary monarch.

In a unique constellation of characters, Sissi (Maria Helgath / Simone Werner, alternating cast), Emperor Franz Joseph (Dominik Zehnhoff-Söns) and her murderer Luigi Lucheni (David Lindermeier) meet again in the afterlife. This tense encounter triggers a journey through the hidden emotional landscapes of Sissi's life, sparking both past and new conflicts.

Silent cries from the golden cage

The play traces Elisabeth's abrupt transformation from carefree girl and fun-loving tomboy to empress, whose inner conflict quietly escalates in the role of monarch. Unheard throughout her life in her struggle for understanding and personal freedom, it is only in death that she finds the long-awaited recognition of her deeply buried feelings. This tragic turn of events is moving not only because of the profound suffering, but also because of the impressive resilience of a complex woman who was far more than fate allowed her to be.

"I am free as long as I feel: My life, that belongs only to me!"

An unusual relationship

A strange relationship develops between the empress and her assassin - a bond characterized by a mutual, fateful understanding. Sissi's deep longing for her soul to "slip away to heaven through a tiny opening in my heart" paradoxically finds its fulfillment in Lucheni. As her murderer, he tragically gives her the freedom she was denied in life. Through this plot, Lucheni becomes the character who enables the audience to view and understand Sissi's nature from a completely new perspective.

"You stretched out your wings and flew infinitely far, so that image after image and word after word flew past you. Slowly the world withdrew from you..."

Returning home

In the heart of this city, which is so closely linked to Sissi's fate, the evening takes on an almost fateful dimension. Munich, Sissi's birthplace and the Bavaria she so longed to return to, becomes a symbolic home through this production, to which she is now allowed to return.
With its unique intimacy, the Hoftheater offers Sissi a stage on which she is allowed to perform with all her unheard feelings and thoughts. In this sense, the audience not only witnesses a historical story, but also a homage to the human core of a figure who is only seen in her façade.