Well the entire cast dresses up, IIRC.

Nanetta aka Anne Page - Fairy Queen
Mrs Quickly - Witch

Bardolph and William Page - RVW as Anne Page

Without wishing to interrupt the flow of disguises, can I just quickly slip in another 'Lady turns into Tree' transformation which I came across while googling away happily among Rimsky-Korsakov operas. In Kashkey the Deathless, Kashkey's daughter turns into a weeping willow. Just thought I'd mention that as I was quite proud of finding it.

It occurs to me that I have only ever seen, and probably only ever heard come to think of it, one Rimsky-Korsakov opera (Le Coq D'Or) and there are more of them out there than I had thought. Thanks for whetting the appetite for a bit of further exploration, IGI, in a corner I probably wouldn't have thought of looking into all by myself.   

Thanks for that link IGI.


Yup. That was the one!

As a penance for failing to get SADKO, a late entry for transformations in the Rimsky-Korsakov gamut...  in THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN, Prince Gidon transforms himself into a bee as a ruse by which to enter his father's court unrecognised.  And the music for this transformation, is of course The



Moving on to disguises, but staying with Rimsky-Korsakov...  his first piece, THE MAID OF PSKOV is entirely based on a disguise.  Princess Olga of Pskov is preparing for her marriage to Tucha, a local military hero.  However on the eve of her wedding her supposed father, the Baron of Pskov, reveals to her that she is in fact the daughter of Ivan the Terrible - he has disguised her for her entire life for her own protection, so that no-one would know her identity (in a city which was fanatically opposed to Ivan's reign).  However, Ivan is now besieging the city, and it's hoped that Ivan will not destroy the town while his own daughter is inside?  Olga, however, is killed in the confusion (so the disguise is extremely effective in this case), and all ends in the usual Russian misery and disaster (quick curtain).

Ah, another disguise on the same theme is in an Offenbach I've coincidentally mentioned once today already... in L'ILE DE TULIPATAN the soprano has been brought-up as a boy, to save her from the sexual predations of HRH King Cacatois XXII...  while the tenor has been brought up as a girl, to save him from being drafted in King Cacatois's army.

Even in Don Carlos, the Verdi opera which now has the reputation as a a Serious Work, not melodramatic tosh (and indeed it isn't) the Queen and Princess Eboli swap masks so Carlos can sing a duet with her thinking she is the Queen.  (He is not very good at judging female tessitura.)  This gives the game away.

And if you have one of those Everything Verdi Possibly Wrote productions, Eboli bursts into the prison disguised as a boy at the head of rioters.

There are noticably fewer male to female drag moments in opera, but a well known bit of gender bending is when Octavian dresses up as a maid, Baron Ochs fancies him and Octavian leads the Baron off to an interminable tavern scene.

Are we playing by Bostonian or Swedish rules?

Ah, that would be well-known New Year's Eve tradition of having surprise guests from other operas at the Masked Ball...  this must be Rosalinde singing Klänge der Heimat, nicht war?   And Eisenstein fails to recognise her...