CREATOR PERFORMANCE Victor Herbert conducts from his own Hit Musical Madeleine

with Creator of the role of Madeleine Fleury, New Zealand soprano Frances Alda

A perfect day Madeleine

Victor Herbert (composer) 

Frances Alda (vocalist : soprano vocal) 
Victor Herbert (conductor) 
Description: Soprano vocal solo, with orchestra

2/20/1914 Camden, New Jersey Victor 74385

Please see top of the page for condition

Madeleine is an opera in one act by Victor Herbert set to a libretto by Grant Stewart, after the French play Je dîne chez ma mère (I'm dining at my mother's house) by Adrien Decourcelle and Lambert-Thiboust. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 24 January 1914 with Frances Alda in the title role.

Reception and performance history
For its world premiere on 24 January 1914, Madeleine was presented at the Metropolitan Opera as a double-bill with Pagliacci (with Caruso as Canio). It had a total of six performances at the Met, three times paired with Pagliacci, twice with Don Pasquale, and once (for its final performance) with the United States premiere of Wolf-Ferrari's L'amore medico.[1]

Madeleine was Herbert's second opera, but in contrast to many of his operettas and musicals, it did not prove popular and dropped from sight after its premiere run. Although it received a warm reception from the first night audience, particularly Madeleine's aria, "A Perfect Day", the New York Times critic dismissed it as "not a notable landmark in the progress of native art."[2]


Frances Alda (born Fanny Jane Davis) (May 31, 1879? - September 18, 1952) was a New Zealand operatic soprano.Alda married Giulio Gatti-Casazza, manager of the Metropolitan Opera, where Alda soon established her career, and sang roles in operas like Martha, Manon Lescaut, and La Boheme. It was during this time that she recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Alda also created the title roles in Victor Herbert's Madeleine and Henry Hadley's Cleopatra's Night.She and Gatti-Casazza divorced in 1929, and Alda left the Metropolitan soon afterwards.Her 1937 autobiography was titled Men, Women, & Tenors.