Breeches role
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In theater, a breeches role or breeches part is a role in which a female actor performs in male clothing. Breeches, tight-fitting knee-length pants, were a standard male garment when these roles were
An Actress at Her Toilet, or Miss Brazen Just Breecht (John Collet, 1779)
Dorothea Jordan as Hippolyta by John Hoppner, 1791
Anna Ulke as Prinz Orlofsky in "Die Fledermaus" (Vienna, 1875)
Pauline Viardot as Orphée (1860) in Gluck's opera
The Marriage of Figaro
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The Marriage of Figaro, K. 492, is a commedia per musica in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater
Breeches role
…Leonore in Fidelio or Gilda in Act III of Rigoletto) are not considered breeches roles. The most frequently performed breeches roles are Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro), Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), Hansel (Hansel und Gretel) and Orpheus (Orfeo ed Euridice), though the latter was originally written for a male singer…
Early 19th-century engraving depicting Count Almaviva and Susanna in act 3
Act 1: Cherubino hides behind Susanna's chair as the count arrives.
Printed libretto for the Prague production of 1786
Engraving of Lorenzo da Ponte by Michele Pekenino, after a portrait by the American painter Nathaniel Rogers (1788–1844)