The Trouser Role

Scene 1. Der Rosenkavalier – Octavian and the Marchallin – Opera North.

The curtain rose, revealed the obscene scene

Of lovers now ungauged as passions rage.

A head goes down in haste to taste the Queen.

Two women sing. Sweet harmonies cascade,

Into lustful grating cadence of sound,

Until silenced by a lingering kiss.

Taught strings take up their tension, and astound

The watchers, caught; voyeurs of lovers’ bliss.

The words they sing, hidden in music’s flow,

Fly past us, like a morality lost.

In this moment only the lovers know

The reason for this lesbian cost.

Now we see the trousers are on a boy.

His cousin’s matronly mounds, are his toy.

Cherchez la femme -Der Rosenkavelier is the turning point in the novel.

Published by Clive La Pensée

Clive La Pensée, ex-science teacher, recognised writer on history of beer, novelist, expressionist, dreamer, believer in never giving up, empathiser, hopeful for a future without class, gender or racial prejudice. It's tough and at the moment, one has to remember distance travelled, rather than where we are at.

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