First Night
Author: Jane Aiken Hodge
Interest Level:
9-12
Age:
14-18
Genre:
Adventure, Historical Fiction
Subject:
Women's History and Experience, Changes and New Experiences, Friends and Friendship
It is 1802, peace is breaking out in Europe, and two young women set out to seek their fortune there. American Martha is rich, plain and tired of fortune hunters, English Cristabel is a duke's unwanted daughter with the voice of an angel. But nothing is stable in Napoleon's Europe and twenty-five years of tyranny are to be celebrated with a new opera, but whose libretto will be chosen? Cristabel's prince and Martha's plebian are both competitors, but more hangs on the opera's first performance than either the girls can guess.


