Ladies as gentlemen: the cross-dressing women of Edwardian musical theatre

Queen Mary averted her eyes, but Edwardian audiences couldn't get enough of this musical curiosityThe runaway hit of the 1913 season at the Royal Opera House was the British premiere of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. It begins with a girl dressed as a boy, Octavian, scrambling out of bed after what has clearly been a night of passion with an older woman. Almost 100 years ago did respectable audiences blink at the sight of this cross-dressing hanky panky? Not at all: husbands and wives and ...

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