Prima Donna

ANDRE
Your public needs you!
FIRMIN
We need you, too!
CARLOTTA
Would you not rather have your precious little ingenue?
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Signora, no!
The world wants you!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Prima Donna, First Lady of the stage!
Your devotees are on their knees to implore you!
ANDRE
Can you bow out when they're shouting your name?
FIRMIN
Think of how they all adore you!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Prima Donna, enchant us once again!
ANDRE
Think of your muse...
FIRMIN
And of the queues round the theater!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Can you deny us the triumph in store?
ANDRE/FIRMIN/PIANGI
Sing, Prima Donna, once more!
RAOUL
Christine spoke of an angel...
CARLOTTA
Prima Donna, your song shall live again!
ANDRE/FIRMIN/PIANGI
Think of your public!
CARLOTTA
You took a snub, but there's a public who needs you!
GIRY
She has heard the voice of the Angel of Music...
ANDRE/FIRMIN/PIANGI
Those who hear your voice liken you to an angel!
CARLOTTA
Think of their cry of undying support!
ANDRE
We get our opera...
FIRMIN
She gets her limelight!
CARLOTTA
Follow where the limelight leads you!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Leading ladies are a trial!
CARLOTTA
Prima Donna, your song shall never die!
PIANGE
When she sings we see heaven!
CARLOTTA
You'll sing again, and to unending ovation!
RAOUL
Orders! Warnings! Lunatic demands!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Tears...oaths...lunatic demands are regular occurrences!
CARLOTTA
Think how you'll shine in that final encore!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Surely there'll be further scenes - worse than this!
RAOUL
...I must see these demands are rejected!
ANDRE/FIRMIN
Who'd believe a diva happy to relieve a chorus girl,
who's gone and slept with the patron?
Raoul and the soubrette,
entwined in love's duet!
Although he may demur,
he must have been with her!
You'd never get away with all this in a play,
but if it's loudly sung and in a foreign tongue,
it's just the sort of story audiences adore,
in fact, a perfect opera!
GIRY
For, if his curse is on this opera...
ANDRE/FIRMIN/CHORUS
Prima Donna, the world is at your feet!
A nation waits, and how it hates to be cheated!
ALL
Light up the stage with that age-old rapport!
Sing, Prima Donna...
Once more!