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Nellie Melba

Vocalist Nellie Melba (1861-1931) rose from a childhood in provincial Australia to become a world-renowned opera soprano who performed regularly at London's Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. A diva with a commanding stage presence and a beautiful voice, Melba was the out-standingcoloratura of her era and one of the biggest celebrities of the early 20th century.

In her day, the sometimes-outlandish, seemingly larger-than-life Melba was famed around the globe for her beautiful singing and her commanding stage presence. She helped popularize opera throughout Europe and the United States in an era where opera stars not only hobnobbed with royalty, but were often treated like royalty themselves. And no one demanded royal treatment more insistently than Melba. So well known was she that her name became attached to several popular foods named in her honor: Melba toast and the dessert, Peach Melba.

Pioneering Spirit

Born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1861 as Helen Porter Mitchell, the future opera star was the third-born and first surviving child of Isabella and David Mitchell. Seven more children would follow. Melba grew up in the country estate of Lilydale, near Melbourne. As a child she loved the animals and landscape of Australia, and when the family rode into the bush - the wilderness areas of Australia - on a stagecoach, she would insist on sitting next to the driver so she could help spot deadly snakes. "From our earliest childhood we were taught to strike and kill," she later said. She had an indomitable will forged from the pioneering spirit of mid-19th-century Australia. It was said that her career was prophesized by the readings of a fortune teller that she and some friends encountered one day when she was ten. The woman gazed into Melba's hands and said: "I see you everywhere in great halls, crowded with people. And you are always the center of attraction - the one at whom all eyes are directed."

Her entire family was musically inclined, but Melba was the only child who persisted in music. She attended Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne, where Peitro Cecchi recognized her singing talent as a powerful and lilting soprano. However, opportunities for her to perform were limited, and Melba put any thoughts she had of a formal career in music on hold.

When she was 21, Melba married an Irish immigrant named Charles Armstrong. They moved to Queensland and had a son, George. But she envisioned languishing there in a rural area where there was no opera at all. Two months after George's birth, she left Queensland and moved to London, looking for a better opportunity to advance her dream career. After getting nowhere in London, she went to Paris and finally attended her first live opera. There, Madame Mathilde Marchesi became her opera teacher and sponsor. For her stage name she took the name Melba, short for Melbourne; Nellie was the family's nickname for her. She made her debut in Brussels in 1887, playing the role of Gilda in Rigoletto.

Became Celebrated Diva

The following year, in 1888, Melba made her London debut at Covent Garden, playing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor. Until 1926, she would be a fixture at the famous London opera house. She also debuted in the United States in the role of Lucia, singing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, where she would also perform regularly until she was in her mid-sixties.

Melba's singing style reflected the influence of her teacher, Marchesi. According to critics her vocals were the very definition of coloratura with their high range, precise intervals, clean intonation, and light but exacting attack. Other performers were often awed. As quoted in Opera News, Scottish soprano Mary Garden recalled hearing Melba hit a high C at Covent Garden: "The note came floating over the auditorium of Covent Garden, came over like a star and passed us in our box, and went out into the infinite.… That note of Melba's was just like a ball of light."

Although Melba performed mostly in Europe and in New York, she occasionally visited her native Australia, returning for the first time in 1902 to a loud and large reception. Australians felt that she was proving that they could be as sophisticated as any nation, and her fans at home admired the way she cultivated culture while never denying her roots. Between 1909 and 1911 she lived in Coldstream, Australia, and opened the Melba Conservatorium of Music in Richmond. She taught at the conservatorium, a training ground for future opera singers.

For most of the nearly four decades of her career, Melba was the greatest diva of her time, even though she was not a great stage actress. Her immaculate, unforced coloratura singing was immortalized in a series of recordings made between 1907 and 1916, including a moving scene from Hamlet. At her impressive home she entertained many of Europe's royal families and was a powerful personality and celebrity. When she had an affair with the duke of Orleans in 1900, her husband divorced her. She did not remarry and had no other children. During World War I, she was unstinting in her war work, often performing at benefit concerts, and in 1918 she was made a dame of the British Empire.

So famous was Melba that two foodstuffs were named after her: Melba toast and Peach Melba, the latter created by the chefs at London's Savoy Hotel. A Melba doll also became popular with children. She lived lavishly, buying a house in London and remodeling it to resemble the French palace at Versailles. Her private rail car was always stocked with plover's eggs and fresh caviar, her favorite foods, and decorated with specially scented linens.

Feared and Admired

Melba was as much feared on the opera circuit as she was loved by admirers. The door of her dressing room at Covent Gardens had a sign that admonished: 'SILENCE! SILENCE!" She ran her career imperiously. In her 1925 autobiography, Melodies and Memories, she wrote: "The first rule in opera is the first rule of life. That is, to see to everything yourself. You must not only sing, you must not only act; you must also be stage manager, press agent, artistic advisor." She was always on guard to maintain her top ranking in opera, making sure she was always paid one pound more than the famed Enrico Caruso, and looking out for competitors. "When you are the diva, you have to be the best always." she wrote in her autobiography. She also described her drive for achievement thus: "If I'd been a housemaid I'd have been the best in Australia - I couldn't help it. It's got to be perfection for me."

Though relentless in advancing her career and often snobbish, Melba was also bawdy. She consumed as lavishly as she entertained. Though often considered too overweight for certain ingenue roles, she nonetheless pulled them off by the intensity of her singing, enrapturing audiences and fellow performers.

Melba's fans were ardent and spanned several continents. Once, when she was giving out autographs in St. Petersburg, Russia, an adoring man grabbed her pencil, bit it into pieces, and handed them out as cherished souvenirs. Not known for her humility, Melba in her autobiography wrote that the pencil pieces were received "with a reverence and an excitement which, I should imagine, must have compared favorably with that of the medieval peasants who scrambled for so-called sacred relics." According to legend, a dying man in London once heard her singing nearby and said: "If there is such beauty on earth as that voice, let me live," and he recovered. As she recounted in her memoirs, in one country town, people who couldn't get into a crowded hall crawled under the floorboards in order to hear her sing.

Queen of Farewells

Melba bade farewell to her native Australia in 1924, releasing a letter that said: "I have tried to keep faith with my art … to make the big world outside, through me, understand something of the spirit of my beloved country." She then made farewell tours and concerts worldwide, so many so, in fact, that a sarcastic expression arose: "More farewells than Nellie Melba." She sang at the opening of the nation's Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, and her final concert in Australia was in 1928. In 1931, refusing to accept her aging, Melba got a facelift, but the operation resulted in a blood infection, and she died in St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, the cause of her death not released to the public.

Ever concerned about her public perception, Melba had even orchestrated her funeral in advance. She had had a photograph taken of her portraying the dead Juliet of Romeo and Juliet, and after her death she was made up to look like the photo, with her bed strewn with frangipani, before anyone was allowed to see her. The funeral attracted national and international dignitaries to Melbourne, and she was buried at Lilydale Cemetery under a monument that depicts her reported last words: "Addio! Senzor Rancor" - "Farewell, without bitterness."

Books

Melba, Nellie, Melodies and Memories, 1926, reprinted, Hodder, 1980.

Moran, William, Nellie Melba: A Contemporary Review, Greenwood Publishing, 1985.

Murphy, Agnes, Melba: A Biography, Da Capo Press, 1977.

Periodicals

Opera News, October 1996; November 2003.

Online

"Dame Nellie Melba," Australian War Memorial Web site,http://www.awm.gov.au/forging/australians/melba.htm (December 28, 2003).

Dame Nellie Melba Research Centre Web site,http://www.arttechnology.com.au/lilyhist/melba.htm (December 28, 2003).

 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Dame Nellie Melba

(born May 19, 1861, Richmond, near Melbourne, Austl. — died Feb. 23, 1931, Sydney) Australian soprano. After study with Mathilde Marchesi (1821 – 1913) in Paris, she debuted in Brussels in Rigoletto (1887), and in the next six years she sang in all the major opera houses of the world. One of the most celebrated coloraturas in the years preceding World War I, she sang mostly at Covent Garden after 1902. Concentrating on a few Italian and French operas, she possessed abundant technique and vocal beauty. Two foods, Melba toast and peach Melba, were named for her.

For more information on Dame Nellie Melba, visit Britannica.com.

 
British History: Nellie Melba

Melba, Nellie (1859-1931). Opera singer. Born of Scottish parents as Helen Porter Mitchell, near Melbourne (Australia), it was only after marriage to Charles Armstrong that her gifts were developed. After study in Paris came a brilliant début in Brussels (1887) as ‘Mme Melba’, clearly derived from her birthplace. World-wide acclaim followed. Immensely popular and honoured as ‘Dame’ because of her work for war charities, she bade farewell at Covent Garden in 1926.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Melba, Dame Nellie,
1861–1931, Australian soprano, whose name originally was Helen Porter Mitchell. After study with Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, she made her operatic debut in Brussels in 1887. Famous for her lyric and coloratura roles, she sang regularly at Covent Garden in London from 1888 until 1926 and intermittently with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City from 1893 to 1910; in 1907 she performed at the Manhattan Opera House and also made appearances in Australia and many other parts of the world. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1918.

Bibliography

See her autobiography, Melodies and Memories (1925).

 
Wikipedia: Nellie Melba


Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba as Rosina in The Barber of Seville
Dame Nellie Melba as Rosina in The Barber of Seville
Background information
Birth name Helen Porter Mitchell
Born 19 May 1861(1861--)
Died 23 February 1931 (aged 69)
Genre(s) Opera
Occupation(s) Opera Singer
Instrument(s) Voice
Years active 1886 - 1926

Dame Nellie Melba, GBE (19 May 1861 – 23 February 1931), born Helen Porter Mitchell, legendary Australian opera soprano and probably the most famous of all sopranos, was the first Australian to achieve international recognition in the form. She and Dame May Whitty both became the first entertainers to become a DBE in 1918.

Family

She was born at "Doonside" in Richmond (now an inner suburb of Melbourne) into a musical family, attending Presbyterian Ladies' College (a prestigious private school) where her musical talent emerged. She moved with her father David Mitchell to Queensland in 1880.

Marriage

She married Charles Nisbett Frederick Armstrong, the son of a baronet, and had one son. Although on paper the marriage lasted almost twenty years, in practice it was over within two. Melba was a free spirit; motherhood and social conventions did not suit her, although later in life she was close to her son and grandson. Her mother in law, keen not to lose a grandson, helped Melba with introductions during her early career. Later, when famous she caused a scandal after the news of her secret affair with the pretender to the French throne, and their trip across Europe to St Petersburg in a private train carriage, became public.

Professional career

In 1886, she travelled to Europe with her family in an attempt to begin a musical career. With no success in London, she continued to Paris where a prominent music teacher, Madame Mathilde Marchesi, agreed to tutor her. Her first starring role was at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels and she returned to London to Lady de Grey's patronage, ensuring her success with the aristocratic audience at Covent Garden. Thus began a professional career in Australia and England that saw her as the prima donna at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden through to the 1920s. She was feted by royalty and always earned at least one shilling per performance more than any other singer. Before the War, Melba nights were social events and the audience blazed with jewels. Melba also sang in New York at the Met and Chicago, and famously, at Oscar Hammerstein's opera house, drawing the Met audiences to his new theatre, even though Caruso was singing at the Met.

It was also Marchesi who persuaded her to adopt a suitable stage name. 'Melba' was chosen as a contraction of the name of her native city.[1]

Melba visited New Zealand in February 1903 after her tour of Australia. She arrived in Invercargill from Hobart and was welcomed by Sir Joseph and Lady Ward.(Otago Daily Times, February 17, p.6.). After giving one concert in Dunedin she travelled to Christchurch. She was interviewed on the train. (The Press, February 20, p.5). The Wellington concert was on Monday February 23 and reviewed the following day (Evening Post, February 24, p. 5.).

Coldstream

In 1909, she bought Coombe Cottage at Coldstream, a small town 50 km east of Melbourne. The house is located at the current juncture of Maroondah Highway and Melba Highway (named in her honour). Coombe Cottage is now the residence of Melba's grand-daughter, Pamela, Lady Vestey (the mother of the 3rd Lord Vestey). Melba also set up a music school in Richmond, which she later merged into the Melbourne Conservatorium.

Awards

She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 for her charity work during World War I, and was elevated to Dame Grand Cross in 1927. She and Dame May Whitty were the first entertainers to be awarded the honour of Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE).

Ruthlessness

Despite the angelic voice for which she was admired, she was also known for her demanding, temperamental diva persona; often she would make last minute decisions before a performance, and often would deliberately upstage other sopranos during their performances, grabbing the attention for herself. She felt that the three words "I am Melba" were sufficient to explain her every wish or whim. She tolerated no rivals. The tenor John McCormack, on the night of his London debut, attempted to take a bow with her on stage, but she pushed him back forcefully. "In this house, no one takes a bow with Melba."

If a singer's greatness can be gauged by how detested she was by colleagues, then Melba would undoubtedly be the greatest singer of all time. In Emma Eames' memoirs, Melba is an unnamed wicked force who frustrated opportunity after opportunity for Eames. Titta Ruffo, Rosa Ponselle, John McCormack, Luisa Tetrazzini, Frances Alda, and others also spoke of their unpleasant experiences with Melba. Emma Eames later in life averred that Melba had a beautiful voice, but of her portrayal of Marguerite in Faust, Eames quipped that "She would have hung the jewels off her nose if she could!"

Some poetic justice occurred when Enrico Caruso, during a performance of La bohème, as a joke, pressed a hot sausage into her hand that he'd hidden in his pocket as he sang "Che gelida manina, se la lasci riscaldar."("What a cold little hand, let me warm it")

Melba described Florence Austral's voice as "One of the wonder voices of the World", hardly the remark of a diva so ungenerous to her colleagues. She was from a previous generation to Caruso and his colleagues above. She found Caruso coarse and uncultivated. Tetrazzini was simply outsung by Melba and the Covent Garden audiences decided, not Melba. Her colleagues of the earlier days, such as the great de Reszke brothers, a tenor and a baritone, did not complain of such treatment. On the recording of her Covent Garden farewell, in tears, she even thanks the "dear Stagehands".

Patronage of others

Despite the hatred Melba may have inspired in her colleagues, Melba was respected and did help the careers of younger singers. She taught for many years at the Conservatorium in Melbourne and looked for a "new Melba". Melba passed her own personal cadenzas onto a young Gertrude Johnson, a valuable professional asset. The Australian baritone John Brownlee was helped by her, and it was Brownlee who accompanied Melba on her last commercial recordings in 1926, where her voice sounds as astonishingly preserved as ever. The Australian tenor Browning Mummery sang with Melba in her Covent Garden farewells also. Melba also "discovered" a lyric soprano named Stella Power whom she thought sounded a lot like herself. In early 1918 Miss Stella Power participated in a "Melba Concert" with Nellie Melba at the Isis Theatre where she was well received. Power was dubbed "the little Melba", but Power lacked Melba's ambition, soon married and had a child, and retired.

Solitary radio performance

In 1920 she appeared on a pioneering radio broadcast from Guglielmo Marconi's factory in Chelmsford, England. However, she realized that people listening on the radio could hear her for free, so in typical Melba fashion, she never made another radio appearance. This may have been because there was so little artistic control over a radio performance and because the transmission quality was even worse than a recording. Melba certainly did not need money by 1920. It was even rumoured that she owned all the taxi cabs in Melbourne!

Recording

Melba's official "farewell" to Covent Garden in 1926 was recorded. Her voice still sounds remarkably fresh, and at the end of the evening she makes a tearful speech to the audience.

Some recordings of her voice were made in the early 20th century, and have been re-released on CD for contemporary audiences. The audio fidelity of the recordings reflects the limitations of the early days of commercial sound recording. However, even these early recordings show an almost seamless pure voice, with effortless coloratura, legato and perfect intonation. They give an idea of the voice which people described as silvery and disembodied, with the notes forming in the theatre as if by magic and floating up through the theatre.

"Farewells"

She then left for Europe and later developed a fever in Egypt which she never quite shook off. She is also well remembered in Australia for her seemingly endless series of "farewell" tours between her last stage performances in the mid 1920s and her final, last concerts in Australia in Sydney on 7 August 1928, Melbourne on 27 September 1928 and Geelong in November 1928. The real final performance was a mere matinee in Adelaide, ending perhaps the most stellar operatic career which had begun in 1887.

From this, she is remembered in the vernacular Australian expression "more farewells than Nellie Melba".

Her autobiography "Melodies and Memories" was published in 1925.

Death

She returned to Australia but died in St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1931 aged 69 of septicaemia which had developed from facial surgery in Europe some weeks before. She was given a state funeral from Scots' Church, Melbourne, which her father had built and where as a teenager she had sung in the choir. She was buried in Lilydale, near Coldstream. Her headstone has Mimi's farewell words "Addio, senza rancor" (Farewell, without bitterness).

The funeral motorcade was over a kilometre long, and her death made front-page headlines in Australia, the UK and Europe.

Legacy

Nellie Melba on the $100 note
Enlarge
Nellie Melba on the $100 note

Melba was closely associated with the Melbourne Conservatorium, and this institution was renamed to the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music in her honour in 1956.

Her name is associated with two foods, a dessert (the Peach Melba), and Melba toast, both of which were created by the French chef Auguste Escoffier.

The music hall at the University of Melbourne is known as Melba Hall.

The Australian 100-dollar note features her image.

Sydney Town Hall has a marble relief bearing the inscription "Remember Melba", unveiled during a World War II charity concert in memory of Melba and her World War I charity work and patriotic concerts.

Melba, the last of the 19th century tradition of bel canto sopranos, is one of only two singers with a marble bust in the foyer of Covent Garden. The other is Adelina Patti.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ As was the case of Florence Mary Wilson, named Florence Austral and Elsie Mary Fischer[1] named Elsa Stralia; (both named after Australia), and June Mary Gough, named June Bronhill (after Broken Hill).

References

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

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Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nellie Melba".  Read more

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