Commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946, with Claramae Turner as Madame Flora.

The opera's first professional production was presented on a double bill with Menotti's The Telephone at the Heckscher Theater, New York City, February 18–20, 1947 by the Ballet Society.

The medium's parlor Monica, Madame Flora's daughter, and Toby, a mute servant boy rescued from "the streets of Budapest" play dress-up.

When Madame Flora, or "Baba" as they call her, arrives home drunk, she violently chastises them for not preparing for that night's seance.

With Madame Flora in a trance in her chair, a fake seance is held where Mrs. Nolan speaks with what she thinks is her deceased sixteen-year-old daughter but is really Monica behind a screen.

After demanding that the guests leave, she calls for Monica and tells her what she felt, eventually blaming Toby who was in the other room the whole time.

The guests again arrive, expecting another seance but are driven away by Madame Flora who tries to convince them that the whole thing was a sham by revealing all the tricks that she and Monica used.