http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2023849,00.html

   Wagner - public genius with a private passion for bustles, bows
   and bodices

   Composer's notes to couturiers suggest he may have been a secret
   cross-dresser

   Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
   Thursday March 1, 2007
   The Guardian

   A previously unpublished letter by Richard Wagner to a firm of Milanese
   couturiers offers the intriguing possibility that the great composer
   was, in fact, a cross-dresser.

   The letter is published for the first time today in the inaugural
   edition of the Wagner Journal.  In it, the composer of the Ring des
   Nibelungen details the cut of an outfit, ostensibly intended for his
   wife, Cosima.

   Requesting "something graceful for evenings at home" he continues:
   "The bodice will have a high collar, with a lace jabot and ribbons;
   close-fitting sleeves; the dress trimmed with puffed flounces - of
   the same satin material - no basque at the front (the dress must be
   very wide and have a train) but a rich bustle with a bow at the back,
   like the one at the front) ..."

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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