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! Prima donna, first lady of the stage! Your devotees are on their knees to im-plore you! ANDRE: Can you bow out when they're shouting your name? FIRMIN: Think of how they all a-dore you! BOTH: Prima donna, enchant us once again! ANDRE: Think of your muse FIRMIN: And of the queues round the theatre! BOTH WITH PIANGI: Can you de-ny us the tri-umph in store? Sing, prima donna, once more! RAOUL: Chris-tine spoke of an angel... CARLOTTA: Prima donna, your so-ong shall live again (ANDRE/FIRMIN: Think of your public!) CARLOTTA: You took a snub but there's a public who needs you! [GIRY: We have heard the voice of the angel] (ANDRE/FIRMIN: Those who hear your voice liken you to an angel!) CARLOTTA: Think of their cry of un-dying sup-port! (ANDRE: We get our opera FIRMIN: She gets her limelight!) CARLOTTA: Follow where the lime-light leads you! (ANDRE/FIRMIN: Leading ladies are a trial!) CARLOTTA: Prima donna, your song shall never die! (PIANGI: When she sings we see heaven) CARLOTTA: You'll sing a-gain, and to unending o-vation! (RAOUL: Orders! Warnings! Lunatic demands!) [ANDRE/FIRMIN: Tears... Oaths... Lunatic demands are regular oc-currences!] CARLOTTA: Think how you'll shine in that final en-core! Sing, prima donna, once more! RAOUL: Surely, for her sake... (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 her pat-ron? Raoul and his soubrette, entwined in love's duet! Al-though he may demur, he must have been with her! (CARLOTTA O, fortunata! Non ancor Abbandonata!) ANDRE/FIRMIN: 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/MEG: For (But) if his curse is on this opera... COMPANY: Prima donna, the world is at your feet! A nation waits, and how it hates to be cheated! (song slows down) Light up that stage with that age-old rap-port! (Strum rapidly and VERY loudly) NC Sing, prima donna... (COMPANY takes a HUGE gulp of air, watch out for Carlotta's very high D notes.) NC ONCE MORE! (Curtain closes) ... Intro to another song.