"Prima donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when the good days come— When the prima donna's lips are dumb, And the man who reads us his "little things" Has lost his voice like the girl who sings; When stilled is the breath of the cornet-man, And the shrilling chords of the quartette clan; When our neighbors' children have lost their drums Oh, what will we do when the good time comes? ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... course the ladies know,— I have my doubts. No matter,—here we go! What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings; Prologues in metre are to other pros As worsted stockings are to engine-hose. "The world's a stage,"—as Shakespeare said, one day; The stage a world—was what he meant to say. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to-night—that is, if you will care to listen to me." Jean said this with a very demure air of mock modesty, knowing well that the reception of a new ballad from him would equal the furor for a new aria from the prima donna of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... towards him, and in her vehemence clasped his wrist. The girl watched them both with a smile. It reminded her of a scene in an opera she had heard once in a strange language. The prima donna had looked and pleaded ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the city! For a wonder, he wasn't a tenor, only a basso, but they adored ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... this view are unable to give a satisfactory explanation of all the phenomena of commerce. Of course, the qualification "recognized as useful" is of the utmost importance as a mark to determine what is goods. But a prima donna, or a world-renowned physician, cast naked by shipwreck on the shores of North America, is certainly, better off than a blind beggar, his fellow sufferer. Compare Storch, Handbuch II, 335 ff. and his Considerations sur la Nature du ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... such, he carried out both his own and Wagner's new and revolutionary principles of interpretation, which have gradually made the orchestral conductor a personage of even greater importance, in concert hall and opera-house, than the prima donna, travelling, like her, from city to city, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... repetitions of flashy operas that have long passed out of every respectable repertory; and in other countries the Government official within whose jurisdiction the opera falls may, and very often does, enforce the engagement of some musically incompetent prima donna in whom he, or some scheming friend, takes a ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... see by the Musical Times that we're to have the new prima donna, Stellafanti, at ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... production of his first, last, and only opera, Beethoven went into a great rage and declared if the subject were ever mentioned again, he would burn the manuscript. At one time friends begged him to hear a new prima donna, Wilhelmina Schroeder, the daughter of a great actress, believing that in her he would find ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... once, when he married her; now she had grown old Critical in their first glance at a prima donna Forgetfulness is like a closing sea He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight It rarely astonishes our ears. It illumines our souls Madness ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... that a single flower expresses a complete declaration of love, an offer of marriage, and, presumably, a hint at the settlement, is, with our more practical visionaries and enthusiasts of the nineteenth century, rather an echo of the stock market than a poetical fancy. We fear that no prima donna looks at her flowers without a thought of how much they have cost, and that the belle estimates her bouquet according to the commercial value of a lily- of-the-valley as compared with that of a Jacqueminot rose, rather than as flowers simply. It is a pity that the overwhelming luxury of an extravagant ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... feel disposed to hear some good music," he said a moment after, "follow me to the next room; the prima donna of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... dictated, that of one of "my" operas. I retreated behind the scenes, to encounter very nearly as much, and at closer quarters, too, as that lately sustained before the audience. After an embrace of two minutes duration from the manager, I ran the gauntlet from the prima donna to the last triangle of the orchestra, who cut away a back button of my coat as a "souvenir." During all this, I must confess, very little acting was needed on my part. They were so perfectly contented with their self-deception, that if I had made an affidavit before the mayor—if ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... you hadn't made me give up trying for light opera, because I received one Insult (with a capital I) while I was Madame Larese's favourite pupil, I mightn't in any case have turned into a great prima donna. I was rather excited and amused by the Insult myself—it made me feel so interesting, and so like a heroine of romance; but you didn't approve of it; and we had some hard times, hadn't we, after all our ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... I could give you even the faintest idea of the brilliancy of the scene, or the splendor of the triumph achieved over the legions of prejudice, the cohorts of injustice, and the old national guard of hoary conservatism. If the triumph of a prima donna is something to boast, what was the triumph of these toil-worn women, when not only the members of the Committee, but Senators and Members of the House, crowded around them with congratulations and assurances that their able and earnest arguments had fully prevailed, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... travel as an opera singer. I have heard both singers and Carlotta was my choice. Adelina was the most advertised, for she was a money-maker and demanded just so much notoriety when she engaged and signed her contracts. Her power was supreme and no one dared to say her nay. Woe be to the poor prima donna who sang better or had more applause or favors than she did. She was the only queen of song as long as her reign lasted. Emma Nevada and Madam Etelka Gersta were her especial victims when they sang the same season ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... more than justice to the home-bird they missed on Plymouth Rock. In this generous treatment of their affection for it, they perhaps condoned for mating the English lark so incongruously; but it was true their choice was very limited. To match the prima donna carissima of English field and sky, it was necessary to select a meadow bird, with some other features of resemblance. It would never do to give the cherished name and association to one that lived in the forest, or built its nest in the tree-tops or house-tops, or to one ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... experts at the Hippodrome; Julian Jokes, "in his inimitable Hebrew monologue"; the Seven Sebastians, the world's most marvelous Herculean acrobatic performers; Mlle. Joujou, the popular singing comedienne, Prima Donna and Star, direct from her unusual and most distinguished triumph at the Palace Theater, London; and a dozen more of the younger and more popular people of the stage, all adorned, with adjectives and hyperbole. Down at the bottom of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... he was careful, and in his accounts exact; but the making of money and its accumulation were things that to him could safely be delegated to second-class minds. A haughty pride of intellect was his, not unmixed with that peculiar quality of the prima donna which causes her to cut fantastic capers and make everybody ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... in with a letter made himself as important as the first lover. 'For,' said he, 'the small are of just as much importance as the great, in an artistic whole.' Then the hero demanded that the whole of his part should only be retorts on making his exit, for these the public applauded; the prima donna would only play in a red light, for that suited her best—she would not be blue: they were all like flies in a bottle, and I was also in the bottle—for I was the manager. I lost my breath, my head was quite dizzy! I was as miserable as a ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... and calculating. The West prefers warm-blooded politicians. Calder succeeded in spite of his manner, or his mask, or whatever it may have been; and he did it by a penetrating knowledge of the country, a superb capacity as administrator and a talent for keeping out of trouble. He was no man for prima donna scenes. Even the Education Department, a witch's cauldron of troubles over the Separate School question in the new provinces, never entangled him in theatricals. He was unpopular with the Opposition as soon as the new Government began, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... when the drawing-room was gay with light and music, and Kate was singing one of Judie's least objectionable songs, with a verve and grace of gesture that the prima donna herself need not have despised, Amy and I went out on the moonlit lawn, leaving Hilyard leaning over the piano, and Mrs. Mershon sleeping peacefully in a corner. We strolled up and down the gravelled path in a ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... 3. Donizetti's opera "Gemma di Vergi" presented at Niblo's Gardens, New York City, with Majocchi, prima donna, and Perozzi. ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... door he caught the glance of a little, round, elderly woman at a table close to him, and he stopped. She had a faded, showy bonnet, and she carried her worn clothes with an air. He recognised the companion and friend of a famous prima donna whom he had not seen ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... cursed fancy to the country villa of a great Jew banker, and since that moment the arrangement has gone off. We have offered her everything; the commandant's country castle; his lady's country farm; the villa of the director of the Opera; the retreat of our present prima donna; all in vain. We have even hinted at a temporary repose in a neighbouring royal residence; but all useless. The banker and the Signora are equally intractable, and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... The great prima donna had come to San Francisco to sing at the ground-breaking for the Panama Exposition and in an ever-generous spirit agreed to give her matchless services to the cause in which she was deeply interested. The crowds were packed for blocks in every direction and suffrage speakers were ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... to go around, but you're so contrivin' like, I thought you might find out a way." Memories of the footlights were temporarily banished upon hearing this wonderful intelligence. A puzzled pucker came between the brows of the little would-be prima donna and remained there until at last the exigency ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... masker^. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo^, buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello^; pulcinello^, pulcinella^; extra, bit- player, walk-on role, cameo appearance; mute, figurante^, general utility; super, supernumerary. company; first tragedian, prima donna [Sp.], protagonist; jeune premier [Fr.]; debutant, debutante [Fr.]; light comedian, genteel comedian, low comedian; walking gentleman, amoroso^, heavy father, ingenue [Fr.], jeune veuve [Fr.]. mummer, guiser^, guisard^, gysart^, masque. mountebank, Jack Pudding; tumbler, posture ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... d'Amour; and from the doctrine that Massenet was a greater composer than Dvorak; and from Italian bands and Schnellpostdoppelschraubendampfer orchestras; and from Raff's Cavatina and all of Tschaikowsky except ten per centum; and from prima donna conductors who change their programmes without notice, and so get all the musical critics into a sweat; and from the abandoned hussies who sue tenors for breach of promise; and from all alleged musicians who do not shrivel to the size of five-cent ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... cost 34 francs. A great sum! Engaging under these circumstances a Prima Donna, at the miserable pittance of 40,000 francs, the answer of Mathilde amounts to much less, for every syllable would then cost but 8 sous: but even that is not so bad ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the foyer she found herself surrounded by men and women whose frank interest was of the same well-bred but artless essence as that afforded a famous actress or prima donna exhibiting herself before the footlights. It was evident that she had a sense of humor, for as she made her way slowly toward the entrance a smile twitched her mouth more than once. Clavering thought that ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... between the acts in a calico apron and a pink sunbonnet and doing a thing they bill as vaudeville. I'm dying to see a real show—a smart one that hasn't run two hundred nights on Broadway—one with pretty girls, and pink tights, and a lot of moonrises, and sunsets and things, and a prima donna in a dress so stunning that all the women in the audience are busy copying it so they can describe it to their home-dressmaker ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... a moment's hush, and then a great roar of applause. Ben had made a popular success of which a prima donna might have been proud. ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each others arms or the voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and vaunted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave after the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a great artiste is always a student. But what I meant by saying that a mere writer has no place in a prima donna's life was that, whereas my work is more or less a hobby, and my little bit of 'fame'—as you choose to call it—merely a side-issue, your work will be your whole existence. You will live for it entirely—your art and the world's recognition of it will absorb every thought. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... celebrities. Oh, and let me remember to tell you that M. Thierry, the blind historian, has sent us a message by his physician to ask us to go to see him, and as a matter of course we go. Madame Viardot, the prima donna, and Leonard, the first violin player at the Conservatoire, are to be at ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... said Holmes. "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the far-sighted spectacles clear up on her forehead, so that her eyes might the nearer look at the wound, it felt better right away! And have we ever since heard any music like that which she hushed us to sleep with—could any prima donna sing as she could! And could any other face so fill a room with light ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... teacher to let her sing to Madame Bonanni, the celebrated lyric soprano, whose opinion would be worth having, and perhaps final. The great singer had the reputation of being very good-natured in such cases and was on friendly terms with Margaret's teacher, the latter being a retired prima donna. Margaret felt sure of a fair hearing, therefore, and it was for this trial that she was going to the ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... Hence, those who are deficient in voice avoid the English stage. Miss KELLOGG, for example, never attempted English opera, because she knew that people who had heard ROSE HERSEE or CAROLINE RICHINGS would laugh at her claim to be "the greatest living Prima Donna," should she compete with those birds of English song. Wherefore, she wisely confined herself to the Italian stage, sure of pleasing a public that knows nothing of music, but is confident that a lady who enjoys the friendship ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... was richer and more chastened. It was her line, her condition, part of her expression. If at Miss Birdseye's, and afterwards in Charles Street, she might have been a rope-dancer, to-day she made a "scene" of the mean little room in Monadnoc Place, such a scene as a prima donna makes of daubed canvas and dusty boards. She addressed Basil Ransom as if she had seen him the other week and his merits were fresh to her, though she let him, while she sat smiling at him, explain in his own rather ceremonious way why it was he had presumed to call upon her on ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... her children or saying a word to anybody, she went to see Mademoiselle Josepha Mirah, prima donna of the Royal Academy of Music, to find or to lose the hope that had gleamed before her like a will-o'-the-wisp. At midday, the great singer's waiting-maid brought her in the card of the Baronne Hulot, saying that this person was waiting at the door, having ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... that Prince Frederic is in London. The name of the lady who has so infatuated him is Mlle. Yvonne Trebizond, the well-known prima donna." ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... day spent out, one evening, into Margie's dressing-room. Miss Harrison was preparing for the opera. There was a new prima donna, and Archer was anxious for her to hear the wonder. Margie had never looked lovelier. Her pink silk dress, with the corsage falling away from the shoulders, and the sleeves leaving the round arms bare, was peculiarly ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... chest. The characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown eyes—their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the prima donna—epitomized the tension, expressed the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... were to do this, it might induce her some day to go on the stage, and I would prefer to buy her a sieve of black cockles from Ring's End to cry about the streets of Dublin to seeing her the first prima donna of Europe." A genuine talent for music will assert itself in spite of neglect, and one evening at the house of Moore, where with her sister Olivia she listened in tearful enthusiasm to some of his melodies, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Morley [Footnote: Viscount Morley of Blackburn.] the best talker I ever heard and after him I would say Symonds, Birrell and Bergson. George Meredith was too much of a prima donna and was very deaf and uninterruptable when I knew him, but he was amazingly good even then. Alfred Austin was a friend of his and had just been made Poet Laureate by Lord Salisbury, when my beloved friend Admiral Maxse took me down to the ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... applause. The members of the assembly were seated one-half on his right, and one-half on his left, in boxes handsomely fitted up for them; and as soon as they had all taken their places, a poem on the occasion was recited by the Prima Donna, in which there were some good points, which called forth great applause. I think it is Gresset who, in one of his ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... Washington at one of the theaters where Jenny Lind was singing before an audience composed of the first people of our land. In one of the boxes sat the author, then on a visit to this country, and a favorite everywhere. The prima donna sang her greatest classical music and moved her audience to the wildest applause. Then in response to the renewed calls she stepped to the front of the stage, turned her face to the box where the poet sat, and in a voice of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Besides sacred, he taught her operatic music. On one occasion Anielka sung an aria in so impassioned and masterly style, that the enraptured Justiniani clapped his hands for joy, skipped about the room, and not finding words enough to praise her, exclaimed several times, "Prima Donna! Prima Donna!" ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... companion, who was a musical fanatico, gave his undivided attention to the stage; and, in the meantime, I amused myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part, of the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this point, I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they were arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... as important as the great ones, and that all were of equal consequence, considered as an artistic whole. The hero would only play parts composed of nothing but points; for those brought him down the applause. The prima donna would only play in a red light; for she declared that a blue one did not suit her complexion. It was like a company of flies in a bottle; and I was in the bottle with them, for I was the director. My breath stopped and my head whirled round; I was as ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... aggrieved prima donna, as she threw a hasty glance at her deshabille and snatched up the kimono. "Pretty talk, Fullaway—very, and all intended to benefit Weiss there. Lost, indeed!—I've lost all my jewels, and up to now nobody"—here she flashed a wrathful glance at ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... "Cherry Ripe" to the infinite satisfaction of her audience. Young Mowbray indeed, in the shape of Dandy Mick and some of his followers and admirers, insisted on an encore. The lady as she retired curtseyed like a Prima Donna; but the host continued on his legs for some time, throwing open his coat and bowing to his guests, who expressed by their applause how much they approved his enterprise. At length he resumed his seat; "It's almost too much." ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... defended passed out to execution. The tenth knock-out in the prize ring received by the professional pugilist was followed by the immediate sequestration of his fee for that particular encounter, and the tenth aria vibrating from the lips of a prima donna was either compounded for at a certain rate or taken in kind by the official who attended at ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... "bravo" was decisive, for that sound Hushed "Academie" sighed in silent awe; The fiddlers trembled as he looked around, For fear of some false note's detected flaw; The "Prima Donna's" tuneful heart would bound, Dreading the deep damnation of his "Bah!" Soprano, Basso, even the Contra-Alto, Wished him five fathom under ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the world, a gentle voice, and a slow utterance in English, which he spoke but indifferently and with a strong accent; he generally conversed with my father and mother in French. One of the first visits he paid to Covent Garden was in my mother's box, to hear Miss Paton and Braham (his prima donna and tenor) in an oratorio. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of Braham's fine performance of one of Handel's magnificent songs ("Deeper and deeper still," I think), but when, in the second part of the concert, which ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... discovery of the body was retold, though more scientifically, by Mr. George Grodman, whose unexpected resurgence into the realm of his early exploits excited as keen a curiosity as the reappearance "for this occasion only" of a retired prima donna. His book, Criminals I have Caught, passed from the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth edition merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... after all, lost nothing of The Princess Pattie except half of the overture—a loss that, as operettas go, might indeed be counted a gain; but the succeeding activities of the prima donna, the ponderous basso and the brace of "comedians" were subject to a series of very sensible impediments and interruptions. Several times—and often at the most inopportune of moments—a swarthy, earnest young man walked ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... too precious to the enraptured husband to be shared with other ears. And in the hush of the bed-time hour, when tired daddies are seeking repose in the oblivion of sleep, the unearthly bangs on the grand piano below in the parlor, and the unearthly screams and yells of the budding prima donna, as she sings to her ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... seldom encounter that sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance. They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar; they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna. They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more—a sense of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he makes at the same time a strange appeal—he touches upon ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the talent of an amateur. At the age of seventeen, she heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of youthful enthusiasm; and the next morning, all alone and without introduction, found her way into the presence of the PRIMA DONNA and begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she had done, and though she refused to be her mistress, placed her in the hands of a friend. Nor was this all, for when Pasta returned to Paris, she ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was drifting in shoal water. Mrs. Jefferson came of French parents, and was a Mrs. Burke, a widow with one child, a son, when she married Mr. Jefferson. Her son tells us that she had been one of the most attractive stars in America, the leading prima donna of the country; but she bore her changed fortune, as the wife of an unsuccessful actor and manager, with no less dignity on the stage of real life, where no applause was to be had but what came from those who loved her as mother, wife, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... the period of the Dumas book,—that is, restored it in name, but not in fact,—with the result, in New York and London at least, of making the dress of the opera more absurd than ever. Violetta, exercising the right which was conquered by the prima donna generations ago, appears always garbed in the very latest style, whether she be wearing one of her two ball dresses or her simple afternoon gown. For aught that I know, the latest fad in woman's dress may also be hidden in the dainty folds of the robe de chambre in which she dies. ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Eugenia, "was at the head of this company of strolling players; my mother was a young lady of respectable family, at a boarding-school. She took a fancy to my father in the character of 'Rolla'; and, being of course deservedly forsaken by her friends, became a prima donna. I was the only fruits of this connection, and the only solace of my mother in her affliction; for she bitterly repented the rash ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... supplanted by another man, or a singer unable to secure employment, possibly from lack of means to advertise himself, is not likely to grow fat under any method of vocal exercise, be it ever so physiological; while the prima donna who has chanced to please the popular taste and become a favorite may ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... you for going," said Latisan. He followed her, and to her profound amazement she discovered that a woodsman could be as temperamental as a prima donna. "I'm going, too, Mr. Flagg," he called over his shoulder. "I'm going for good and all where you're concerned. I'm done with you. I gave you your fair warning. Send another man north to ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... know nothing of women." There was a moment's silence. From a distant room, dimly seen through a vista of curved and pillared archways, a woman's voice came pealing out to them, the passionate climax of an Italian love song, the voice of a prima donna of world-wide fame. A storm of applause was echoed through the near rooms, a buzz of appreciative criticism followed. Drexley rose up from the seat where he had ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... and abroad, Italian women were coming to the fore in musical circles, and no opera in any one of the continental capitals was complete without its prima donna. Among the distinguished singers of this epoch the two most celebrated were Faustina Bordoni and Catarina Gabrielli. Faustina, born in the year 1700, was the daughter of a noble Venetian family, and at an early age began to study music under the direction of Gasparoni; when ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Cordilleras. In front the sea was spread, a smiling jailer, but even more incorruptible than the frowning mountains. The waves swished along the smooth beach; the parrots screamed in the orange and ceiba-trees; the palms waved their limber fronds foolishly like an awkward chorus at the prima donna's ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... one day, through his sister, dona Pepa, that he had gone way off with the little girl somewhere—what was that city you visited, Rafael?—Milan, yes, Milan, that's it! I've been told that's the market for singers. He wanted his Leonora to become a prima donna. He never came back, poor fellow!... Things must have gone badly with them. Every year he would write home to his sister to sell another piece of land. It is known that over there they lived in real poverty. In a few years the little ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... excited over the announcement of a new prima donna, whose wonderful achievements in Italian opera had set even the exacting critics of Italy ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... lands over there and to hear him talk, you'd think she had the money; Until it comes to ordering; then the Queen of Sheba isn't in it. 'I guess we can stand the best room in the house,' he says. And when I showed them the blue suite and told them Tarquina, the prima donna opening at the Metropolitan to-night, had the companion suite in rose, it's: 'Do you think you can put up with this blue, Annabel?' But there comes the cameo now. No, the other ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... it, she had never been in anything before in her life, and no prima donna was ever more excited over her debut than she at the thought of this little recitation; but her pleasure met with a sudden check upon the discovery that a white dress would be necessary. She hadn't a white dress, and she knew ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... a prima donna now, our little Margarita, a successful artist, a public character. "Margarita Josepha," Madame had christened her, for twenty years ago simple American surnames found no favour with the impressario, and "cette charmante Mme. Josepha," "artiste vraiment ravissante," ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... ourselves, in uneasy chairs, opposite each other, and he had composed me, what he termed 'a grog': himself preferring the more innocent mixture known as eau sucree, did he allude to Fidelio. I praised heartily the discipline of the orchestra, the prima donna, whom report made his country-woman, with her strong, sweet voice and her extraordinary beauty, the magnificence of the music, the ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... scarfs—wearing a most unseaworthy hat, her broad, vigorous face wreathed in smiles. She was too much an American not to believe in publicity. All advertising was good. If it was good for breakfast foods, it was good for prime donna,—especially for a prima donna who would never be any younger and who had just announced her intention ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... prima donna all right," chuckled Bob. "Where now? Oh! To Stone's shoe shop? Well, what do you know about this notice in the paper?" and his ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... "A future prima donna," she retorted, "can't do always what she likes. If I go to bed too early I cannot sleep. To-night I am excited and nervous. There isn't anything likely to bring trouble upon—them, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
