The most famous soprano of her generation, Nellie Melba brought both purity of sound and compelling dramatic interpretation to her operatic roles. Although born in Australia, her operatic home was the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London. She also sang for several years in New York City, and toured throughout Europe and Australia. Melba’s career was marked by colourful, often dramatic incidents, and she enjoyed popular adulation as well as artistic eminence.
She was born Helen Mitchell on May 19, 186l, in Richmond, Melbourne. Her father was a strict and hardworking farmer who encouraged his daughter’s musical abilities. She started to play the organ at the age of 12.
As a young adult, she married Charles Nesbitt Armstrong, who took her to live in Queensland, where the heat and isolation of the outback proved too much for her. Two months after her only child, a son, was born, she returned to her father’s home, determined to make her living as a singer. She studied with a local teacher with whom she quarrelled about money, and made her concert debut in Melbourne in 1884. Her success in Melbourne encouraged her to go to Europe to study.
The singer first arrived in Paris, where she studied for a year with the famous voice coach Mathilde Marchesi. It was at Marchesi’s studio that the impresario Maurice Strakosch heard her singing—he signed her immediately to a ten-year contract. Before she could begin engagements with Strakosch, however, the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels made her a far better offer. Strakosch refused to release her from her contract, and police barred the way to her first rehearsal at the theatre. This ugly situation was resolved by the sudden death of Strakosch the night before her first performance.
It was at this time that she changed her name to Nellie Melba, in recognition of her birthplace, Melbourne. She made her Covent Garden debut in 1888 as Lucia di Lammermoor, and sang Ophelia in Hamlet (by Ambroise Thomas) at the Paris Opera House in 1889. During a performance of Rigoletto there, she recruited a tenor from the audience to finish the role of the Duke when the original singer lost his voice. In Paris, Melba took acting lessons from Sarah Bernhardt, who became a lifelong friend.
Her most famous role was that of Mimi in La bohème, which she first performed in 1896. She studied the role with its composer, PUCCINI, and was to sing it many times, often in partnership with Enrico CARUSO as Rodolfo. Verdi also coached her for Desdemona in his Otello, but died before he could see her perform it.
Melba made her New York Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in La Bohème in 1904. In 1906, Oscar Hammerstein I opened the Manhattan Opera House, a rival to the Metropolitan Opera. He recruited Melba by throwing 1,000-franc notes o n the floor of her dressing room, and promising her first choice of roles. She wanted to sing Mimi, but the Metropolitan had the only available score. Finally, a small opera company in Britain provided a score, and Melba d i d the role for Hammerstein in 1907.
She was by now world famous. While continuing to appear in New York, she also did seasons in Australia and sang regularly at Covent Garden. In 1918 she was made a Dame of the British Empire, and in 1926, at the age of 65, Melba gave her last performance at Covent Garden. Her voice was still beautiful, but her health was deteriorating and she died in Sydney, in February 1931.
Jane Prendergast
SEE ALSO:
OPERA.
Melba, Nellie. Melodies and Memories (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970)..
Moran, William R. Nellie Melba: A Contemporary Review (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985)..
Radic, Thérèse. Melba: The Voice of Australia ( London: Macmillan, 1986).
Historic Recordings of Actual Performances, Dame Nellie Melba.