"Prima donna" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head, neck, breast, and upper back dove-coloured. It has none of the aggressive habits of its brethren of the plains. It keeps mainly to dense forests. Jerdon describes its cry as "mellow, subdued, and agreeable." It is the prima donna of ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... judiciously select from among the same a few, so that, while justice is done the subject, the interest of the reader may not be lessened, is far from being an easy task, albeit it is a pleasant one. I find, indeed, that the pages of the public journals fairly teemed with praises of the great prima donna, as she was frequently called by them. The musical world was startled, intensely delighted, electrified, by her notes of sweetest melody. Her magnificent voice, in its great range in both the upper and lower registers, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... in plain clothes and spectacles—the one decidedly prosaic appearance in the pomp of war and the glitter of royal state. Victor Emmanuel said good-humouredly that when driving with his great subject, he felt just like the tenor who leads the prima donna forward ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... never 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 him just ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... was at Home she would suck Lemons and complain about Draughts and tell why she didn't like the Other Girls' Voices. She began to act like a Prima Donna, and her Mother was encouraged a Lot. Lutie certainly had the Artistic Temperament bigger than ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... 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
... above stated axiom. 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 of Madison avenue must be a great singer. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... dine with you, my dear," she wrote; "it will be delightful. And what has happened to you? Your letter actually conveyed a sense of cordiality. You never used to be cordial. And I wish to meet some of your nice friends. Ask one or two, please—a prima donna of some kind and a pianist, I think. I want them weird and original—the prima donna with short hair, and the pianist with long. In Tony's new station in life I never see anybody except the sort of people whom your father likes. Are you forgiven ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... uncertain, but that was amusing and thrilling rather than pitiful or tragic. She had two or three "steadies" among singers, who gave her engagements as accompanist at small drawing-room recitals or charitable entertainments. There was a stout prima donna whose arias for dramatic soprano kept her practicing until midnight, and a rich young lady amateur who needed a very friendly and careful accompaniment because she sang flat and always lost her breath before the end of a long phrase. The manner in which Tommy concealed these defects ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stated 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
... obtain the same results . . . with eggs at the price they are! If some producing genius had not conceived the idea of ending off nearly every musical-comedy song with a dance, and yet another genius of equally enviable parts had not created the beauty chorus, I don't know how many a prima donna of the lighter stage would ever be able to get through her own numbers. For, to dance at the end of her little ditty, and to have the chorus girls relieve her of further action at the end of the first verse, brings as great a relief to her as ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... also the dazzling allurements offered by various "careers" which bring fame and perhaps fortune. The glittering triumphs of a prima donna, a picture on the line in the Salon, or a possible book which shall sell into the hundred thousands, are not without a certain charm, even though people who are "wedded to their art" sometimes get a divorce ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... her costume 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 ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Elgar's Salut 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 ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... little toe dancer in her attractive transformations; the Brothers Zincatello, Risley 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 the list with a trembling pencil ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... consulting 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 ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... preferred the idyllic flavor I was beginning to find in the presence of the ordinary, futureless young girl, voyaging under the chaperonage of her own innocence,—the Little Sister of the Whole Ship. But this crepusculant prima donna—no, I don't like it. Though it explains some things. These splendid creatures are never sent half equipped into the world. I fancy that where there's an operatic voice, there's an operatic soul to go with it. Well, La Sanguinelli ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... a sentence like this?—'The established favourites in the musical world are never quite sure but the new comer may not be one among the many they have seen fail'; or this?—'As it is the fate of such a very small number of men to marry a prima donna, I shall be doing little harm, or be likely to change plans of life, by enumerating some of the disadvantages.' The nineteenth century may be a prosaic age, but we fear that, if we are to judge by the general run of novels, it is not an ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... butter and cheese, Chopin declined to give it to him; the editor of the "Courier" inserted in his paper a sonnet addressed to Chopin. Pecuniarily the concerts were likewise a success, although the concert-giver was of a different opinion. But then he seems to have had quite prima donna notions about receipts, for he writes very coolly: "From the two concerts I had, after deduction of all expenses, not as much as 5,000 florins (about 125 pounds)." Indeed, he treats this part of the business ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... About four years ago he married the beauty over whom all Paris was going raving mad. She was the prima donna of the Italian opera in Paris. But the marriage was not pleasing to the earl, who is severely afflicted with the prejudices of his rank. He immediately disowned his son, the Honorable Kenneth, never speaking to him again during his, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... bending under the weight of its liquid diamond. The birds were improvising a miniature symphony in the birches at the end of the garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna, hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo; and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird of the pastor's family, had ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... in 1806 tenor at the Theatre "an der Wien," sang the part of Florestan in the spring of that year, when Fidelio was revived. Mdlle. Milder, afterwards Mdme. Hauptmann, played Leonore; Mdme. Marconi was also prima donna.] ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... see!" 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 of getting those ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... it up, and rendered the prima donna quite as effectively, interjecting "The Last Rose of Summer" as an aria in a manner that would have been encored in San Francisco. He responded with a few staccato notes, and the scene ended by their rushing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... delegation of home people were on hand to meet Miss Cayvan, and she immediately assumed the haughty airs of a prima donna. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... frankness and simplicity of speech. When McAdoo asked him at the White House if the present drive was satisfactory, he said in the most innocent way, "I am not there." Viviani, who is the head of the French Commission, is as jealous as a prima donna, terribly jealous of Joffre, (which makes Joffre feel most uncomfortable) because, of course, Joffre is the hero ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... 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 ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... 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
... 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 odes ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... come 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 ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... performed for other people. Besides, those who oppose 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 ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... continues t' behave, we'll say no more about the vanishin' leddy." And with this the policeman strolled off into the fog, his suspicions in nowise removed. He knew many rich young bachelors like Hillard. If it wasn't a chorus lady, it was a prima donna, which was not far in these degenerate days ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... gently; "surely you forget that most of these people have been to town and heard plenty of good music, Madame Velma herself most likely, and all the great singers. They know they cannot sing like a prima donna; but they do their anxious best, because you ask them. I cannot see that they require ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... every time. But this article goes on to say, if he rubs his hands together and says, 'Very nice,' and walks off, that means he thinks you will probably make a better bookkeeper or baby dandler than you will a prima donna. Millie used to write that around the opera house in Vienna, when Auchinloss started rubbing his hands together after an audition, everybody used to have the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... coming out 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 ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... beauty is the magnolia and who can tint her roses or paint the morning glory that points its purple bugle towards the sky as though to sound the revelie for a waking world. No prima donna has ever yet entertained the crowned heads of Europe with such music as that divine melody with which the mocking bird greets the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... hand she began to beat time nervously against the cushion of the box. Selina Storace was singing the "Che faro" to an audience that hung spellbound upon the prima donna's lips. Chauvelin did not move from his seat; he quietly watched that tiny nervous hand, the only indication that his shaft had ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... 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, because he was regarded as a Civil Service ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... woman played a gospel tune on a melodeon, and a woman in the same seat with Mrs. Field led the singing. She was past middle age, but her voice was still sweet, although once in a while it quavered. She had sung in the church choir ever since she was a child, and was the prima donna of the village. The young girl with roses in her hat who sat in front of Mrs. Field also sang with fervor, although her voice was little more than a sweetly husky breath. She kept her eyes, at once bold and timid, fixed upon the young minister as ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with prime donne before, scores of times. Yes; I have had experience." He laughed sardonically. "I thought I knew what to do. Generally a prima donna has either a pet dog or a pet parrot—sopranos go in for dogs, contraltos seem to prefer parrots. I have made a study of these agreeable animals, and I have found that through them their mistresses can be approached when all other avenues are closed. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... to know how far Evelyn acquiesced in the obscure lot which her father imposed upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and sing old music, instead of singing for her own fame upon the stage. But had she a great voice? If she had, he would like to help her. The discovery of a new prima donna would be a fine feather in his cap. Above all, he was also curious to find out if she were the innocent maiden she appeared to be, or if she had had flirtations with the clerks in the neighbourhood, and he found his opportunity to speak to her on this ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... but at the same moment another door near the orchestra admitted a small white butterfly figure, leading in a tall queenly apparition in black, whom she placed in a chair adjacent to the bejewelled prima donna of the night—a great contrast with her dust-coloured German hair and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... made the reckoning without our host," said he, grumblingly. "But it is a pity. Such a capital joke it would have been, and you would have laughed most. Still, it can't be helped, so we'll make the best of the spoiled game. I see the prima donna has thrown off her role, so you had better go after her, Seestern, and see her safe to the chateau. Your monk's cowl is a protection in itself. Don't look disconcerted; you can come back. Our revel does not end ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... see her a great deal, in Dresden," said Godmother when they had gone on their way, "and she's a dear. We must go and see her as she asked us to, and have her down to see us." Godmother spoke as if a very celebrated prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera were no different from any one else one might happen to know. Mary Alice ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... on that song last night," he went on. "There was a time when that wouldn't have been a starter for you, eh? Did you know Stella used to warble like a prima donna, Jack?" ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... 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 that ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... reached 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 she was on the point of laughing outright. But he fumed. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... prima donna—who grew pensive as the amorous boasting increased. An opulent woman past 35, dark-haired, great-eyed; a robust enchantress with a sweep to her manner. Her beauty was an exaggeration. Exaggerated contours, ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... able to imitate any peculiarities which were to be observed either in Dons or Undergraduates, in Presidents or Scouts. He could sit down at his piano, and give you - after the manner of Theodore Hook, or John Parry - a burlesque opera; singing high up in his head for the prima donna, and going down to his boots for the basso profondo of the great Lablache. He could also draw corks, saw wood, do a bee in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... 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 it was hopeless to think ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... was going to be trouble between the duchy and the kingdom, but unfortunately the prima donna has refused ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna! ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... 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 which had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Frank and Aleta went down town to hear Tetrazzini sing in the streets. The famous prima donna faced an audience which numbered upward of a hundred thousand. They thronged—a joyous celebrant, dark mass—on Market, Geary, Third and Kearny streets. Every window was ablaze, alive with silhouetted figures. Frank, who had engaged a window in the Monadnock ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... the gay, cosmopolitan life that saunters along the Wilhelmstrasse and dallies with the allurements of the most enticing shops in Germany; suns itself in the gardens of the Kursaal or on the wind-sheltered slopes of the Neroberg; listens to an orchestra of master-artists in the open or to a prima donna in the brilliance of the opera-house; dines, wines, gambles, dissipates, burns the lamp of life ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Perhaps, though, mine mayn't be as remarkable an organ as we think; and even if 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 money was spent ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... showing her teeth, whisking her tail, yelping, barking, and growling. At the present time, there is not a concert or an opera at Darmstadt to which Mr. S—— and his wonderful dog are not invited; or, at least, the dog. The voice of the prima donna, the instruments of the band—whether violin, clarionet, hautbois, or bugle—all of them must execute their parts in perfect harmony, otherwise Poodle looks at its master, erects its ears, shows its grinders, and howls outright. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... 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 across the stage, throwing ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... of consecutive iced champagne, mock our sight! But more—yes! far more than all, are we reminded of thy abode—thou dispenser of cheering liquids! thou promoter of convivial happiness! meek Saverio! How swiftly glided the mirth-loving nights as—the enchanting strains of the prima donna hushed—we adjourned to thy ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... 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
... the glorified evening sky when they devised such backgrounds?), is turning away from the angel in sheer loathing and anger, a great lady feeling sick at the sudden intrusion of a cad. In a picture by Angelo Gaddi, she is standing with her hand on her chest, just risen from her chair, like a prima donna going to answer an encore—a gracious, but not too eager recognition of an expected ovation. In one by Cosimo Rossetti she lifts both hands with shocked astonishment as the angel scuddles in; in the lovely one, with blue Alpine ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... Poetry Pictures, Something about President's Message, the Prima Donna, Who paid for the Pure Pearl of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... 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 ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... girls had a drive in the park, and in the evening Miss Barry took them to a concert in the Academy of Music, where a noted prima donna was to sing. To Anne the evening was a glittering vision ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... clergyman worried with the fear of being 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 "wax fat ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... 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 ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... hell is all this yappin' about. You pampered pets give me a large pain. I'm askin' you to do somethin'. Either you do it or you don't. Somebody told you you're a star reporter and you believe it. You're developin' a temperament, like a prima donna. I'm payin' you a compliment by giving you a swell feature story; I'm sendin' you where you'd probably like to go anyway; I'm payin' your expenses for your vacation. I'm payin' for all the beer and ale you can guzzle and you balk. ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... he himself said on one occasion, his scores contain exactly the right number of notes. This is "Don Giovanni" as one may see it a century after its birth: a faultless masterpiece; yet (in England at least) it only gets an occasional performance, through the freak of a prima donna, who, as the sage critic said of Mozart, is undoubtedly "a little ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... interjected the 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 hotel manager and the two detectives—"nobody ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... Wilfred Ball felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside. Perhaps the young husband of a great prima donna may feel nearly as sophisticated and proud and "in it" when he strolls carelessly into the dressing-room where the bouquets of admirers overflow upon the floor—but this is scarcely likely, for he would not have the morning freshness still on him of a life spent so far ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... 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 ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his 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
... said Cicely, with answering light in her eyes—"But I don't see how it's going to be done in my case! You may possibly get your wish, but I!—why, my dear, I see myself in futur-oe as a 'prima donna assoluta' perhaps, with several painted and padded bassi and tenori making sham love to me in opera till I get perfectly sick of cuore and amore, and cry out for something else by way of a change! I am quite positive that ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... 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 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... school known to me. These nice little folk were certainly in no wise pallid or distraught; and, when they danced on the stage, the performance was a beautiful and delightful romp which suggested no idea of pain. To see the "prima donna" of the company trundling her hoop on a bright morning was as pretty a sight as one would care to see. The little lady was neither forward nor unhealthy, nor anything else that is objectionable—and it was plain that ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the failure to challenge was a good woman's way of admitting. But with the day of reckoning—not only with him but also with her own self-respect—put off until that vague and remote time when she should be a successful prima donna, she gave herself up to enjoyment. That was a summer of rarely fine weather, particularly fine along the Jersey coast. They—always in gay parties—motored up and down the coast and inland. Several of the "musical" men—notably Richardson of Elberon—had plenty of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... 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
... sixty-seventh of the series were given. At the latter place, Jenny Lind, accompanied by Barnum and his daughter, Mrs. Lyman, visited "The Hermitage," where Barnum himself had years before seen "Old Hickory" Jackson. While there, the prima donna heard, for the first time in her life, wild mocking birds singing in the trees, and great ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... could you be glad to take a minor part to help on the whole, or would you be huffy and cross-grained because your powers were not brought to the front? In the Wagner music at Baireuth, the singers take the good parts in turn, and the best prima donna, as Kundry in "Parzival," in one whole act has only one word. Think of the self-suppression needed for one who has such talent, to be content to act in such a piece and to put her full power into the dumb by-play, which is all that ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... posterity for the poet and much good may it do them. But for the musician, particularly for the song-bird, there is the vertigo of instant applause. In days like these, days that witness the fall of empires, the future holds for the donna, for the prima donna, for the prima donna assoluta, the grandest ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... of an abbate, and had become a new and happier person. For the first time I took part in the jollities of the carnival, and at the end of the first day again came across Bernardo, who insisted upon taking me to the opera to hear a new prima donna who had turned everybody's heart at Naples. Rumour had not belied her. Her appearance was greeted with rapturous applause. Bernardo seized my arm; he had recognised in her his Jewish maiden, just as I was about to exclaim, "It is she!"—the lovely child who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... 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
... 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 every performance of ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... buffo of the party, Juan was told about their curious case; For although destined to the Turkish mart, he Still kept his spirits up—at least his face; The little fellow really look'd quite hearty, And bore him with some gaiety and grace, Showing a much more reconciled demeanour, Than did the prima donna and ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Let our Tutor teach: Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech. 'Tis like the harper's prelude on the strings, The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;— Prologues in metre are to other pros As ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... her music, darling, not with her. To me she is a prima donna, whose performances I must admire and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... to appoint rendezvous with Guilia Rezzonico without awakening the jealousy of Ugolino.... But it is nothing. I have almost quarrelled with Fanny for having revealed to her that the Holy Father repeated his benediction in Chapel Sixtine, with a singing master, like a prima donna...." ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... Hicks, Jr., as agitated as a prima donna making her debut with the Metropolitan: Opera Company, decorated the Bannister bench, arrayed in one of the substitutes' baseball suits. It was too large for his splinter-structure, so that it flapped ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... In the evening, I visit my sweetheart; when the night is fine, we pass it on her balcony.' I don't know whether you have a sweetheart, or whether she has a balcony. But if you are so happy, it's certainly better than trying to find a charm in a third-rate prima donna." ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... small musical party, I heard Euphrasia Borghese sing, whom you may have heard, and who is to be Prima Donna at the new Opera-house, which opens on the 25th or 2eth of the present month. They begin with the "Puritani." It will be altogether devoted to Italian music, I suppose, from the tendency of the New York taste and ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Prima Donna of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and herself one of the most beautiful women in America, Mme. Jeritza tells Evening Journal readers her secrets of beauty. She has studied the art of creating and preserving ...
— What's in the New York Evening Journal - America's Greatest Evening Newspaper • New York Evening Journal
... say without words: 'St. Clair, old fellow, this is your week of peace, everything has been fixed for you, so make the most of it.' And then I'd wander on. The birds would sing to me and every one of 'em would sing like a prima donna. Wherever I stepped, wild flowers would burst into bloom as I passed, and if a gnat should happen to buzz before my face I wouldn't brush him away for fear of hurting him. The universe and I would be at peace with ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... has here. It is the sea that pervades the whole of the act; but imposed on its ceaseless sound there are very splendid things—some worn a little threadbare by now, but many still fresh. In the next act the prima donna has her opportunity. Senta, the heroine, sits at her spinning-wheel amidst a number of maidens. After a conventional spinning chorus, Senta sings the ballad of the Flying Dutchman, whose picture hangs on the wall, and ends up with an ecstatic appeal ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... 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 Frankfort is ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... "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 ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
