24 April 2026
Having recently returned from a week in Vienna (which I wrote about here earlier in April 2026) we have been enjoying watching 'Die Kaiserin' (The Empress) - the Netflix German-language TV drama about Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Set, and filmed, in some of the Hapsburg palaces we visited in our holiday, the series tells the story of the marriage of Bavarian duchess Elisabeth 'Sisi' von Wittelsbach and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria - the outline of which we discovered during our visit to the Schonbrunn Palace. Katharina Eyssen's dramatisation, set almost entirely within the imperial court, feels like a more serious cousin to 'The Great' ‘- Tony McNamara’s irreverent take on the story of Catherine the Great (reviewed here in March 2021) but also reminded me of some aspects of 'Game of Thrones'. Devrim Lingnau is great as Elisabeth, delicately poised on the point of transition between naive innocence and calculated politics - and showing the Empress's changing moods and growing understanding with tiny incremental changes in her facial expressions.
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