History has long vilified Alma Mahler, accusing her of distracting Gustav Mahler from his work, while her passionate love affairs shocked her peers. Drawing on Alma's vivid, sensual, and overlooked diaries, Cate Haste recounts the untold and far more sympathetic story of this ambitious and talented woman. Though she dreamed of being the first woman to compose a famous opera, Alma was stifled by traditional social values. Eventually, she put her own dreams aside, and as Haste recounts here, Alma wielded power and influence the only way she could, by supporting the art of the creative men who were so often drawn to her.