NP: Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Ein Brief

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Interesting to note that his greatest fame was as a librettist for Richard 
Strauss [his music makes several apperances in AtD]. Hofmannsthal's works 
display a thoroughgoing gender blur, most notable in "Der Rosenkavalier":

June 11, 2007
Der Rosenkavalier

          Der Rosenkavalier opens with two women making out in bed, 
          and the SF Opera did not even think of asking Miller Lite to 
          sponsor the performance? Actually, one of the characters is 
          only sung by a woman, and is supposed to be a precocious 
          17-year-old lad, Octavian, a.k.a. Quinquin, taking advantage of 
          the lessons and wisdom of an older woman, the Marschallin, 
          a.k.a. Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg, a.k.a. Bichette 
          (literally "little doe").

          If the set-up sounds French to you, don’t worry: it reminds us of La 
          Chartreuse de Parme rewritten by Proust, complete with the blurred 
          genders and the turn of the 20th century decadence of the aristocracy. 
          The opera was written in 1911 for the latter, and Quinquin, already a 
          soprano in pants, takes two turns as a man in drag, for the former. . 
. .

http://sfist.com/2007/06/11/der_rosenkavali.php

          Hofmannsthal met the composer Richard Strauss, and wrote libretti 
          for several of his operas, including Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier 
          (1911), Ariadne auf Naxos (1913, rev. 1916), Die Frau ohne Schatten 
          (1919), Die Ägyptische Helena (1927), and Arabella (1933).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_von_Hofmannsthal

It's '6 degrees of' relation, but right on page 498, there's a mention of 
"Filtham's Tedium" with ". . . .a relentless chromaticism that might have 
made even Richard Strauss uneasy. . . ."