The two are sent to Saint-Lazare prison where Lilliet registers herself as a courtesan to be able to stay with him. When an angry man threatens Euphrosyne, Lilliet leaps to her friend’s defense.

In Paris, she meets a courtesan named Euphrosyne and strikes up a deep friendship. Lilliet leaves the circus to start a new life. Her circus career culminates with a performance in front of French Emperor Napoleon III, and she is rewarded with a priceless ruby brooch. When her family dies of a fever, she travels to New York where she signs up with a traveling circus headed for Europe. Lilliet casts her thoughts back to her youth, growing up in a religious family where her “prideful singing” is considered sinful. The opera is clearly based on her secret life story, meaning she has been betrayed. When one is finally presented, Lilliet is shocked. Celebrated for her rare Falcon soprano singing range, all Lilliet lacks in her professional career is an opera written just for her. The narrator, a mysterious woman under the alias of Lilliet Berne, is a rising star of the opera in Paris. Set in 19th century Paris, this first person narrative uses the tropes and rhythms of opera itself to tell a life story defined by acting, artificiality, and Gothic flourishes that flirts with the supernatural. The story details the life and adventures of a uniquely talented opera singer calling herself Lilliet Berne. The Queen of the Night is an historical fiction novel by American writer Alexander Chee, published in 2016.

Queen of the night chee