Once upon a time, in a small village near Uppsala*, a farmer who lived there, with his family, cultivated the land during the week and sang in church on Sunday. This farmer had a little daughter whom he taught to decipher the musical alphabet well before she could read. Father Daae was - without perhaps realizing it - a great musician. He played the violin and was considered the best itinerant fiddler in all Scandinavia. His reputation spread far and wide, and it was always to him that people applied, for the dance music at weddings and feasts. Mother Daae was disabled and died when Christine had just turned six. Immediately, her father, who loved nothing but his daughter and his music, sold his plot of land and went off to seek his fortune in Uppsala. All he found there was misfortune.
So he returned to the countryside, wandering from fair to fair, playing his Scandinavian melodies while his child - who never left him - listened in ecstasy or sang along with him. One day, at Limby Fair, Professor Valerius heard the two of them and subsequently took them both to Gothenburg. He claimed that the father was the best violinist in the world and that the daughter had the makings of a great artist. He provided for the education and musical instruction of the child. Everywhere she went, people were impressed by her beauty, her grace and her eagerness to do and to speak only good. Her progress was rapid.
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Kristina Jonasdotter was born in 1843 in a small village called Vederslov in Sweden, but when she was five years old, her family moved to a cottage in a village called Skatelov* in Backen. Her father, Jonas Nilsson sang in the church choir on Sundays and her entire family, including her five older brothers and sister were all musically talented. Kristina took to playing the violin and singing to her own accompaniment at various inns and travelling fairs for money. It was not long before she became well-known and was affectionately nicknamed "Stina from Backen."
One day, the district judge Tornerhielm discovered her at Ljungby Fair and took her to her first music teacher, Madame Adelaide Valerius-Leuhusen who lived in Gothenburg.* The judge also paid for her foreign language and etiquette classes. During this time, she began calling herself "Christina" Nilsson.
When she turned sixteen, Adelaide Valerius-Leuhusen painted her portrait (below).
At the age of 17, she studied singing in Paris and made her operatic debut four years later at the Theātre Lyrique in Paris. Her first role was that of Violeta in the opera La Traviata and her name was changed one final time: to the more French-sounding Christine Nilsson.
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