Her lower voice meant she was often given breeches roles or older women's parts.

These used to be worn by men at the time that breeches roles became popular.

She was a successful and popular comedian, known especially for her breeches roles.

Breeches roles are usually female singers acting the role of a young man.

Composers from the 20th century do not usually have breeches roles in their operas.

This is sometimes called a breeches role or trouser role.

However, in burlesques, breeches roles could be main parts.

She was a controversial artist with her androgynous appearance, and often played boys' breeches roles.

She was also popular in so called breeches roles; her voice was described as very deep and suitable for such parts.

In the Victorian era, musical burlesques generally included several breeches roles.

Opera has several "breeches roles" traditionally sung by women, usually mezzo-sopranos.

A breeches role is a part in an opera in which a woman plays the role of a man.

Sometimes breeches roles are in plays, but they are usually in opera.

There is no breeches role here.

She acted on the stage from the age of 17, mainly in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off the stage.

Similarly, in the formerly popular genre of Victorian burlesque, there were usually one or more breeches roles.

In theatre and opera there was a tradition of breeches roles and en travesti.

Audiences enjoyed her performances in breeches roles.

Her operatic repertoire consisted mainly of breeches roles.

Actress and playwright Susanna Centlivre appeared in breeches roles around 1700.

Because non-musical stage plays generally have no requirements for vocal range, they do not usually contain breeches roles in the same sense as opera.

She often performed Breeches role.

It is called a breeches role because breeches are tight-fitting, knee-length trousers.

Their presence encouraged playwrights to focus on outspoken female characters, daring love scenes, and provocative breeches roles.

Hippolito was a popular breeches role, a man played by a woman, popular with Restoration theatre management for the opportunity to reveal actresses' legs.

Opera has some 'pants roles' which women traditionally sing.

Among them was the man's formal outfit that Ms. Genaux, playing a pants role, would wear during the opera.

The pants role of Orsini is rich in nourishment, scarcely less so the bass part of Alfonso.

The comic potential is enhanced by Don Ettore being played as a pants role - that is, by a woman.

And which for the low-lying, florid pants role of Malcolm, composed for the darker-voiced Rosamunda Pisaroni?

Mr. Crutchfield will conduct; the cast includes Krisztina Szabo in the pants role of Paris.

Falcon roles specifically refers to pants roles written to be sung by sopranos instead of mezzos, as was written for Falcon.

Hers was the pants role - or rather, the kilt role - of Malcom, whom Elena prefers to her other suitors, presumably because he sings better.

In some cases, the casting of a woman in a "pants role" may have been just an excuse to have an attractive actress appear in tight-fitting trousers.

An entire cross-dressing genre of operatic roles, called "pants roles", "trouser roles", or "travesty roles".

I have no desire to bleed into the pants roles of Mozart and Strauss, or sing Orlovsky or Baba the Turk.

Anne Sofie von Otter was utterly convincing, visually, in the pants role of Octavian, and she gained in charm and authority as the night went on.

Sandra Piques Eddy brought an ardent mezzo with a slightly underused lower register to the pants role of Ramiro ("gender challenged," smirked the supertitles).

In the pants role of Malcolm, Laura Vlasak Nolen makes a strong impression; Daniel Mobbs is the sturdy Duglas.

She occasionally appeared in pants roles, including the giant Briareus in the world première of Christoph Willibald Gluck's La caduta de' giganti on 7 January 1746.

A major artistic reason for "pants roles" was that some storylines required young boy characters, but the actual performance required an adult's vocal strength and stage experience in addition to a high, boyish voice.

They were still assigned pants roles, but the characters tended to be more innocuous and less important to the plot, like Siebel in "Faust" or Urbain in Meyerbeer's "Huguenots."

Other pants roles were created due to the need for an adult male character to seem other-worldly (Orpheus in "Orfeo ed Euridice") or unmanly (Prince Idamante in "Idomeneo").

On the opera stage she became known for her portrayal of pants roles (in particular the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro), garnering the nickname "Legs Miller".

Some examples of these boyish pants roles are Cherubino in "The Marriage of Figaro," Siebel in "Faust," and Hansel in "Hansel and Gretel".

Christianne Rushton, in the pants role of Filotete, sang honestly, if sometimes a little mutedly; and Javier Abreu, as the loyal friend Pilade, showed a rapid-fire tenor, eminently capable if slightly nasal to this ear.

Her role as the hero in Handel's "Arminio" was her first baroque role, and she continues to expand her repertoire, which currently includes 28 roles, 20 of which are pants roles (a woman-often a mezzo-soprano-playing a male character).

The first three decades of the 19th century were mezzo glory days, as the castrati went the way of the dodo, and their flashy lover and hero roles, inherited by the dusky, androgynous voices of mezzos, became the so-called "pants roles."

More specifically, an operatic role in which an actress appears in male clothing is called a "breeches role", "pants role" or "trouser role" and roles once performed by a male soprano castrato are more recently sometimes performed by a female mezzo-soprano or contralto.

The Swedish mezzo's height and boyish face worked to her advantage in this pants role, but "Non so piu" sounded hurried rather than erotically breathless and "Voi che sapete" was upstaged by the clumsiest, most improbable antics one has ever seen in this scene.