Serkan Kaya

That is the name of a guy, and assume it is turkish. He happens to be the best Elisabeth assassin of any I've seen, and unfortunately, I never saw him live... the others were good, but this guy... he is... amazing. You can tell how he just lives the role, and has a terrific time doing it.

I once attended a Styriarte concert that had to do with Turkish music and how it was destroyed by Europeans because they don't have 'the ear' to discern it. It was funny, and instructive, and very interesting. In their music, every note has twelve variations. I could 'hear' how he uses that to tremendous effect, which makes him the best Luigi Luccheni EVAH. He's lascivious, he's the needle pricking the balloon in the 'fairy tale' myth. After a fairly romantic first act, he opens the second.

I tried to always get seats near where he would appear for my cousins, in the hope that he'd throw them a souvenir card. He starts with trying to sell devotional souvenirs. Sisi (elisabeth) in the chapel, at Christmas, and so on. Didn't happen. The text is sarcastic, mean, but true enough. The text is sort of, 'You think you know what she was like and made her an icon, but neither text-book nor history will tell you what she was like. You've cemented her memory into some sort of shrine.' She's been 'in' for over one hundred years, and what remains? KITSCH. And later, 'Let me tell you something, (in that nyah nyah sort of tone) 'she was a dirty egoist...' (brilliant how he bent those notes)... she fought against (queen mother ) Sophie only to prove she was the stronger one.... One only hears what one wants to hear of dream and reality, and all that remains, It's kitsch, just kitsch... kitsch.

Serkan rules.

And if you are interested in women who emancipated themselves way before there was any idea of that.. I would recommend the biography by Brigitte Hamman. It revolutionised and debunked the Sisi myths spawned by the local film industry with the insidious Romy Schneider films. Our version of the Disney princess films...