Elisabeth: a comparison of two stagings of one musical

The bachelor thesis focuses primarily on the Viennese musical Elisabeth, which the creative duo Michael Kunze & Sylvester Levay based on the life story of the Austrian Empress Sisi. The text itself deals with the recording of a renewed production from The Theater an der Wien (premiered in October 2003, recording made in October 2005) which is compared to the Czech premiere in The J. K. Tyl Theatre (premiered in November 2019). The Austrian staging, which was directed by Harry Kupfer, is considered a conventional adaptation of the piece and is put in contrast with the Czech production done by Lumir Olšovký which was created under free licence and its creative team chose its own innovative path. The text of the thesis searches for and names fundamental changes which arose between the two productions premiered 16 years apart. The following aspects are elaborated on in detail: the creative teams of the theaters, directing, costumes, scenography, choreography, actors and main characters. These aspects of the Austrian and Czech production are then compared to each other. In the case of the Czech production, the comparison is partly based on the opinions of domestic cultural reviewers. In the following chapter, three specific scenes, which (in the opinion of the author) have undergone the most notable..