The singer's face is upturned as she sings in one of the café-concerts Degas and his friends enjoyed frequenting. The harsh lights emphasize the contours of her face and collarbone, and the entire area around her is suffused with light and vibrant color. Degas has used strident colors for her dress and the picture's background. Yellow, orange, and turquoise contrast sharply with the young girl's pale skin. The girl's face, arms, and upper torso seem carefully modeled, compared to the background, which is composed of freely applied areas of color.

Café-concerts were very popular during the 1870s. They combined a publike atmosphere with performances by singers and comics. The performers of these concerts were typically from working-class backgrounds. Degas wrote, in particular, of his admiration for one of the most popular singers, Emma Valadon (1837-1913), known as Thérésa. The height of Thérésa's popularity was during the 1870s and 1880s, and Degas made a point of attending her concerts.

The model for this pastel, however, is not Thérésa. The figure's features resemble those of Marie von Goethem, who posed for the sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (1879-81). However, the girl's physique does look similar to that of Thérésa during the 1860s. Also, the gesture of a hand raised to the shoulder was one of Thérésa's trademarks. Degas has reworked his memory of the famous singer through the figure of one of his models.

This work was called The Singer in Green when it was sold at public auction in Paris in 1898. Although the work does not contain pure green, the title has not changed.