From Madison, Wisconsin, to the Metropolitan Opera, Olivia (Goldenberger) Monona’s life was marked by serendipity and unexpected fame. Her career, first as a chorister and later a comprimaria (second lead singer) with the newly formed Chicago Grand Opera Company (CGOC), and then as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, developed in tandem with the rising tide of operatic enthusiasm in the United States at the start of the twentieth century. Her name, however, doesn’t appear in any articles or books about the opera of that time period, despite the unusual nature and duration of her career. Olivia Monona’s papers are held by the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives and Chicago’s Newberry Library, but these collections of scrapbooks, diaries, letters, memoir fragments, newspaper clippings, postcards, and photographs are…
