She enjoyed the interviews with Homer and Farrar but it was Fremstad who excited her imagination. She had been assigned an article for McClure’s on three American opera singers, Louise Homer, Geraldine Farrar, and Olive Fremstad. Sometime during the winter of 1913 a new enthusiasm entered Willa’s life. Robinson, © 1983: Discovering Olive Fremstad The following excerpt is from Willa: The Life of Willa Cather by Phyllis C. Willa Cather had already outlined this novel, having had an interest in opera.įortuitously, she crossed paths with the real-life opera singer Olive Fremstadduring this time, which helped her make Thea Kronborg an even more vivid character. Born into the family of a Swedish Methodist minister in a Colorado village, she has a voice, an ambition, and a native sense of the true and fine - qualities all in contrast with the cheapness and tawdriness she perceives around her.įrom her girlhood, when her ambition takes hold, to her triumph as a prima donna at thirty, Thea’s whole life is focused around her supreme desire for artistic perfection. The Song of the Lark is a 1915 novel by Willa Cather, telling the story of Thea Kronborg and her desire to be a world-class singer.
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