News location:

Canberra Today 15°/20° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Melba, toast of kings and emperors

Melba featured on $100 note
WE’VE told you about Canberra Choral Society’s 1930s Soiree this Saturday, July 7, as part of the Society’s Albert Hall Festival, but only hinted at their great big Dame Nellie Melba Concert on Sunday.

Toast Melba, Peach Melba, “doing a Melba” – the girl from Victoria who became Australia’s first superstar on the world operatic stage has entered the language. Born Helen “Nellie” Porter Mitchell, she was the toast of kings and emperors, known for her brilliant singing voice and for her many, many farewell tours.
In the lead-up to the Centenary of Canberra, the Canberra Choral Society is in patriotic mode, using the fact that it was Melba who sang the national anthem at the 1927 opening of Parliament House as the excuse for a celebration in music.
CCS musical director and mastermind of the concert, Tobias Cole, comments, “this concert will take us back to when an ambitious, tenacious young lady made Europe and North America aware of Australia, before Australia really became aware of itself.”
Though her megastar era predated the phenomenon of paparazzi and social media, for the opening of Parliament House the Australian Government did arrange for a simultaneous broadcast across all eastern States and sales of the new crystal radio sets are reputed to have soared.
For those less well off, there was a call for public listening stations to be set up around the nation so that everyone could hear Melba.
During her heyday she was idolised throughout Europe with fewer than seven kings and queens attending one of her gala performances at Covent Garden.
Melba, Cole says, had a voice of “pure crystal,” ranging over three octaves, and yet her repertoire was very small, dominated by French and Italian opera.
Back home during World War I, Melba raised large sums for war charities. In her later years she was active in the teaching of singing at the Melbourne Conservatorium. She continued to sing until the last months of her life and made a legendary number of “farewell” appearances. Her death, in Australia in 1931, was news across the English-speaking world, and her funeral was a national event.
In the coming tribute concert, lyric soprano Rachael Thoms gets to perform songs and arias for which Melba was famous, backed by the Choral Society in opera choruses of the period, and the music played at the starís funeral.
Thoms is the only graduate of the ANU School of Music to complete a Jazz B.Mus Performance degree with Firsts in Classical Performance. In 2011 she was awarded the Canberra International Music Festival Young Performer Award.

Thoms is plainly a Melba fan and says, “her strong, independent, ambitious streak is something I can certainly relate to,”adding that as a single mother determinedly pursuing excellence in music she could relate to “something of her journey.”
The Choral Society is rather impressed that Melba was a savvy businesswoman who released over 100 records and carefully supervised both design and sales prices, ensuring that her records were priced higher than anybody else’s, a technique known to modern markers of expensive French perfumes.
Tribute to Dame Nellie Melba at the Albert Hall, Commonwealth Ave, 3pm, Sunday, July 8, bookings to 62752700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au

Dame Nellie Melba

 

 

 

 

 

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Helen Musa

Helen Musa

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews