Some writers expressed surprise at Melba's playing the last of these roles, since it was merely a supporting part in the opera. She played it on many occasions, saying in her memoirs, "Why on earth a prima donna should not sing secondary "rôles" I could not see then and am no nearer seeing to-day. I hate the artistic snobbery of it." She sang the role opposite the Carmens of Emma Calvé, Zélie de Lussan and Maria Gay. Marguerite de Valois, too, is not the leading female role in "Les Huguenots", but Melba was willing to undertake it as "seconda donna" to Emma Albani. She was generous in support of singers who did not rival her in her favoured roles, but was, as her biographer J. B. Steane put it, "pathologically critical" of other lyric sopranos.