Life, 1912-09-19 · page 3 of 44
Life — September 19, 1912 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Columbia Records advertisement** for opera singer Alice Nielsen, not satirical content. The page promotes two ways to hear her performances: attending live opera/concert appearances or purchasing Columbia phonograph records to play at home. The ad emphasizes Nielsen's prominence as prima donna of the Boston Opera Company and her recordings of famous operatic arias ("Carmen," "Faust," "Don Giovanni," etc.). It also highlights her ability to sing traditional ballads like "Bonnie Sweet Bessie" and "Last Rose of Summer" with emotional authenticity. The advertisement's real pitch: Columbia's "Favorite" phonograph model is positioned as a superior home listening device, encouraging readers to visit dealers to hear Nielsen's records demonstrated on the equipment before purchasing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Just Two Ways of Hearing ALICE NIELSEN Buy tickets and attend her public appearances on opera stage or concert platform or Buy her Columbia Double-Dise Records and hear her—and invite your friends to hear her—in your own home any evening, and as many evenings as you please. Here is a prima donna—a Grand Opera Star—who can sing ‘‘Way Down Upon the Suwanee River "’ and ‘‘ Bonnie Sweet Bessie "’ without leaving out any of the human-ness. Alice Nielsen is to-day famous as the Prima Donna of the Boston Opera Com) and the records she has made for us include arias from ‘‘ Madame Butterfly,” Boheme,” ‘‘ Tosca,” “‘ Faust,"’ ** Carmen,” ‘* Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro" and other operas. But as a singer of the old ballads, the songs that were written and composed years ago when there was less strenuous speed and maybe more sentiment in the world—in these, the real songs of the people, Alice Nielsen is supreme. Hear her sing the ‘‘ Last Rose of Summer,” ‘‘ Kathleen Mavourneen,” ‘‘ The Old Folks at Home"; hear her sing of “Annie Laurie” and ‘‘ Bonnie Sweet Bessie” and you will realize that here is an opera star who, with all her fame, is woman enough still to sing the old ballads as our grandmothers would have liked to hear them sung. All these records will play on your talking machine—no matter what the make, so long as it will play disc records. If you haven't already got one go to the nearest Columbia dealer and ask him to play some of the Nielsen records to youon the Columbia Grafonola ‘Favorite’: it's a $50 instrument—the one in the picture—it has become the standard instrument of the world and its sale is far larger than that of any other model. Write for catalogs. Columbia Phonograph Co., Gen’! Box 207, Tribune Building, New York 1795 comicbooks.com