Franz Joseph’s liaison with the actress Katharina Schratt turned into a lifelong partnership for the Emperor and enabled the Empress to pursue her dreams of traveling throughout Austria and the continent. Though Franz Joseph was said to have loved and adored Sisi, he had affairs-one of them was even set up by Sisi herself. Franz Joseph accommodated his unorthodox and freedom-loving wife as far as his position and sense of tradition would allow.īut royal life grated on Sisi, and her marriage became a burden. True to her independent spirit, she began to rebel against the expectations of the court and longed to emancipate herself. Who among gifted people, who enjoy unlimited freedom, is entirely normal?” her lady-in-waiting Festetics wrote, according to Hamman. “Elisabeth has always been strange and has followed only her whims and wishes, and now shyness and melancholia have been added. The upkeep of her beauty went beyond vanity-it became a fixation. And then, when her thick hair became too heavy to bear, it was tied up in ribbons.Īs she grew more embittered with life as Empress, she ate less and exercised more-and walked around at such a brisk pace that her staff could hardly keep up. Her personal hairdresser spent hours coiffing and draping her long, thick hair-and hustled to hide any hair that fell out to avoid the wrath of the unhappy Empress’s legendary tantrums.Įvery three weeks she weathered a cumbersome ritual, bathing her auburn mane in cognac and raw eggs. She developed elaborate beauty routines and dedicated long portions of each day to them. Sisi was stunning in person and considered one of the most beautiful women of her time. “All these good traits, which Sisi demonstrated throughout her unbridled but loving upbringing, were now worthless, even a drawback,” Hamann explains. When Sisi entered the strict regimens of the Habsburg court in the Imperial Palace in Vienna, she was highly unprepared for its rigid protocols. Hamann was an important Austrian-German writer and historian and in this 1986 biography exposed-for the first time-the empress as a very strong and independent character, rather than simply a beautiful and graceful one. Most important, she was not superficial in her thinking and wasted little time on appearances, trying instead to fathom the ‘truth of things,’” Brigitte Hamann writes in her book, The Reluctant Empress, A Biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. “By nature, Elisabeth was warm-hearted and fair-minded. Her intuitive and natural approach to life was strikingly different to her royal circumstances, where a distinct aristocratic pride and respect for formalities were prioritized, and truth and authenticity ranked low. A child of nature, she grew up hiking and riding horses with her seven siblings-and, from a young age, was encouraged to freely roam the lands. Imperial Apartments at the Sisi Museum Viennaįor a Duchess, Elisabeth enjoyed a rather idyllic and informal upbringing in the Bavarian countryside. Kind, passionate, and youthful, she struggled with the staid traditions of the royal court and fiercely fought to live life her way. Nearly 125 years after her untimely death, Sisi remains a fascinating and beloved icon in Austria. The Sissi trilogy from the 1950s is mainly regarded as a romanticized version of Sisi and her life, whereas the recent productions offer a more realistic and honest portrayal of this multifaceted royal and her years on the Viennese court. ![]() It had been nearly 70 years since anyone attempted to retell Sisi’s story on screen. Earlier this year, Corsage won the Best Performance award at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category. In September, the historical drama Corsage was selected to represent Austria in the Best International Feature Category at next year’s Academy Awards. This latest interpretation of Sisi and her fascinating life as Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began streaming worldwide at the end of September. The 15-year-old Elisabeth, or Sisi as she was fondly called, is refusing to join her mother for an official royal visit and secretly escaping her childhood home on her favorite horse into the nearby lands. ![]() “Sisi, where are you!” the Duchess Ludovika of Bavaria shouts at her daughter in the first scene of the new series The Empress.
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