Famous Prima Donnas

Alice Nielsen runs to the middle of a little bridge, bends forward with her hands on her knees, and smiles at the audience. The house is won—but is this natural charm enough to make her a great artist?

In the late nineteenth-century world of American light opera, a young singer can become a star before critics decide what to make of her. Lewis Clinton Strang introduces Nielsen as she rises from an obscure church singer in Kansas City to the leading woman on the stage, her clear, effortless voice and unaffected delight winning audiences where grand poses and vocal flourishes might fail. Yet her very youth and spontaneity invite doubt: can she do more than charm, and can she meet the demands of the roles before her? What does it take to be a prima donna when being perfectly natural is itself an art?

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