The Prodigy Who Knew Where She Belonged

In 2019, nine-year-old Alma Deutscher performed her own full-length opera, Cinderella, at the Vienna Casino before a packed house. Her parents, both amateur musicians in Dorking, England, had enrolled her in violin lessons at three, expecting a pleasant hobby. By five, she was composing sonatas. By seven, she had written a short opera. Her father later admitted in an interview that the moment he realized his daughter's gift exceeded anything he could teach her was both thrilling and unsettling.…