March 29, 2024

Presentation focuses on Newton’s Prima Donna

In the sesquicentennial year of her birth, local historian Larry Hurto discusses the family, life, and career of “Emma Mershon: Newton’s Prima Donna,” at 6 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Newton Public Library.

A child prodigy, Mershon (1867-1937) attended schools in Newton and in California, before receiving training in Pittsburgh and in Europe. Her lyric soprano voice caused a sensation in Chicago, New York and in Europe’s leading concert halls.

Mershon’s marriage to a Russian nobleman trapped her in Soviet Russia, where she spent the last two decades of her life.