65 Facts About Nellie Melba

Nellie Melba's became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician.

Nellie Melba's took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town.

Nellie Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there.

Nellie Melba's soon achieved further success in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, and later at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, debuting there in 1893.

Nellie Melba's was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera.

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Nellie Melba's returned to Australia frequently during the 20th century, singing in opera and concerts, and had a house built for her near Melbourne.

Nellie Melba's was active in the teaching of singing at the Melbourne Conservatorium.

Nellie Melba continued to sing until the last months of her life and made a large number of "farewell" appearances.

Nellie Melba was born in Richmond, Victoria, the eldest of seven children of the builder David Mitchell and his wife Isabella Ann nee Dow.

Nellie Melba was taught to play the piano and first sang in public around age six.

Nellie Melba's was educated at a local boarding school and then at the Presbyterian Ladies' College.

Nellie Melba's studied singing with Mary Ellen Christian and Pietro Cecchi, an Italian tenor, who was a respected teacher in Melbourne.

Nellie Melba's father moved the family to Mackay, Queensland, where he built a new sugar mill.

Nellie Melba soon became popular in Mackay society for her singing and piano-playing.

The couple separated after just over a year, and Nellie Melba returned to Melbourne determined to pursue a singing career, debuting professionally in concerts in 1884.

Nellie Melba's was often accompanied in concert, and some of her concerts were organised, at times throughout her career by the flautist John Lemmone, who became a "lifelong friend and counsellor".

Nellie Melba's was in despair when the matter was resolved by Strakosch's sudden death.

Nellie Melba's made her operatic debut four days later as Gilda in Rigoletto at La Monnaie on 12 October 1887.

Nellie Melba made her Covent Garden debut in May 1888, in the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor.

Nellie Melba had a strong supporter in London, Lady de Grey, whose views carried weight at Covent Garden.

Nellie Melba was persuaded to return, and Harris cast her in Romeo et Juliette co-starring with Jean de Reszke.

Armstrong filed divorce proceedings on the grounds of Nellie Melba's adultery, naming the Duke as co-respondent; he was eventually persuaded to drop the case, but the Duke decided that a two-year African safari would be appropriate.

Nellie Melba sang the role of Nedda in Pagliacci at Covent Garden in 1893, soon after its Italian premiere.

Nellie Melba's sang the title roles in Herman Bemberg's Elaine and Arthur Goring Thomas's Esmeralda.

Some writers expressed surprise at Nellie Melba's playing the last of these roles, since it was merely a supporting part in the opera.

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Marguerite de Valois, too, is not the leading female role in Les Huguenots, but Nellie Melba was willing to undertake it as seconda donna to Emma Albani.

Nellie Melba's 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.

Nellie Melba was not known as a Wagner singer, although she occasionally sang Elsa in Lohengrin and Elisabeth in Tannhauser.

Nellie Melba's received a certain amount of praise in these roles, although Klein found her unsuited to them, and Bernard Shaw thought she sang with great skill but played artificially and without sensibility.

Nellie Melba's never essayed any of Mozart's operas, for which some thought her voice ideally suited.

Nellie Melba's had first sung the part of Mimi in 1899, having studied it with the composer.

Nellie Melba's argued strongly for further productions of the work in the face of the distaste expressed by the Covent Garden management at this "new and plebeian opera".

Nellie Melba's was vindicated by the public enthusiasm for the piece, which was bolstered in 1902 when Enrico Caruso joined her in the first of many Covent Garden performances together.

Nellie Melba's sang Mimi for Oscar Hammerstein I at his opera house in New York, in 1907, giving the enterprise a needed boost.

Nellie Melba's performed 26 times at the Royal Albert Hall in London between 1898 and 1926.

In 1909, Nellie Melba bought property at Coldstream, a small town near Melbourne, and in 1912 she had a home built there that she named Coombe Cottage after a house she had rented near London.

Nellie Melba's set up a music school in Richmond, which she later merged into the Melbourne Conservatorium.

Nellie Melba's is well remembered in Australia for her seemingly endless series of "farewell" appearances, including stage performances in the mid-1920s and concerts in Sydney on 7 August 1928, Melbourne on 27 September 1928 and Geelong in November 1928.

Nellie Melba's returned to Australia but died in St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in 1931, aged 69, of septicaemia which had developed after facial surgery in Europe some time before.

Nellie Melba's was given an elaborate funeral from Scots' Church, Melbourne, which her father had built and where as a teenager she had sung in the choir.

Nellie Melba was buried in the cemetery at Lilydale, near Coldstream.

Nellie Melba's taught for many years at the Conservatorium in Melbourne and looked for a "new Melba".

Nellie Melba's passed her own cadenzas on to a young Gertrude Johnson, a valuable professional asset.

In 1924, Nellie Melba brought the new star Toti Dal Monte, fresh from triumphs in Milan and Paris but still unheard in England or the United States, to Australia as a principal of the Nellie Melba-Williamson Grand Opera Company.

Nellie Melba's similarly described the American contralto Louise Homer as possessing "the world's most beautiful voice".

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Nellie Melba's gave financial assistance to the Australian painter Hugh Ramsay, living in poverty in Paris and helped him to forge connections in the artistic world.

Nellie Melba can be heard singing on several Mapleson Cylinders, early attempts at live recording, made by the Metropolitan Opera House librarian Lionel Mapleson in the auditorium there during performances.

The poor audio fidelity of the Nellie Melba recordings reflects the limitations of the early days of commercial sound recording.

Nellie Melba had perfect pitch; the critic Michael Aspinall says of her complete London recordings issued on LP, that there are only two lapses from pitch in the entire set.

On 15 June 1920, Nellie Melba was heard in a pioneering radio broadcast from Guglielmo Marconi's New Street Works factory in Chelmsford, singing two arias and her famous trill.

Nellie Melba's was the first artist of international renown to participate in direct radio broadcasts.

Nellie Melba was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours, along with May Whitty the first stage performer to receive this order, for her charity work during World War I, and was elevated to Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1927.

Nellie Melba's was the first Australian to appear on the cover of Time magazine, in April 1927.

Nellie Melba's is one of only two singers – the other being Adelina Patti – with a marble bust on the grand staircase of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Nellie Melba's was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2001.

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

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

Nellie Melba planted a variety of poplar tree known as Populus × canadensis "Aurea", or golden poplar, on the Central Lawn in Melbourne Botanic Gardens on 11 April 1903, which has become known as "Nellie Melba's poplar".

Nichols later complained that Nellie Melba did not cooperate in the process of writing or by reviewing what he wrote.

Nellie Melba appears in the 1946 novel Lucinda Brayford by Martin Boyd.

Nellie Melba's is depicted as singing at a garden party thrown by the mother of the eponymous heroine, when she is described as having the "loveliest voice in the world".

In 1953 a biopic titled Nellie Melba was released by Horizon Pictures and directed by Lewis Milestone.

In 1987 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a mini-series, Nellie Melba, starring Linda Cropper miming to the singing voice of Yvonne Kenny.

Nellie Melba was portrayed by Kiri Te Kanawa in episode 3 of season 4 of the British ITV television show Downton Abbey, performing at the abbey as a guest of Lord and Lady Grantham.

Nellie Melba appears in a pivotal scene in the 2014 novel Tell by Frances Itani.

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