Nellie Melba, Australia`s superstar

HISTORY | 80 Years Ago
Nellie Melba
Australia’s superstar
Vor 80 Jahren ist die weltberühmte australische
Opernsängerin Nellie Melba verstorben.
Anlässlich ihres Todestags lässt MIKE PILEWSKI
ihr bewegtes Leben Revue passieren.
A
ustralia has been called a lucky country and a sunburned country, but more than anything, it’s a
young country, formed from a 112-year-old British
colony on 1 January 1900. at’s a short time in which
to produce famous people, although some 19th-century
Australians were nationally known in their day: gangster
Ned Kelly (see Spotlight 11/10), for example. But the first
Australian to be truly famous was opera singer Nellie Melba,
whose unrivalled soprano voice charmed the European aristocracy. Her career spanned more than 40 years until her
death 80 years ago this month, on 23 February 1931.
“Melba”, the stage name of Nellie Mitchell, was chosen
to represent the fact that she was born near Melbourne in
1861. Her parents, Scottish immigrants, shared their interest in music with young Nellie; her mother, who played
several instruments, was her first music teacher. But when
her mother died in 1880, her father bought a sugar mill
in Queensland, and 19-year-old Nellie joined him there.
Two years later, she found herself caught in an unpleasant marriage, when what she really wanted was to sing professionally. So she left her husband and baby in
1884 and went back to Melbourne.
e Australasian’s critic heard one of
her performances and wrote, “She sings
like one out of ten thousand.” But that
was only the start. Her father took her to
London in 1886, when he was appointed
a representative to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition. A letter of introduction
from a diplomat’s wife then got her an
audition at a Paris conservatoire.
After a year of voice training, she
was ready for the European stage,
singing in Rigoletto and other Italian
operas in Brussels and London. Her
tone and delivery were said to be perfect. e critics loved her, and —
more importantly — so did the public. In her biography I Am Melba,
Ann Blainey writes, “Melba received
the kind of worship that is today
reserved for pop stars.
38
Spotlight 2 |11
The young Nellie Melba:
on her way to a great career
Newspapers called it ‘Melba rage’, or ‘Melbamania’, and
it was fuelled by thousands of loyal fans.”
e opera fans of the time were still mainly aristocrats,
especially at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Melba soon
became very well connected, receiving invitations not only
to perform in opera houses across Europe, but also to sing
privately for the king of Sweden, the emperors of Germany
and Austria, and the tsar of Russia.
By 1920, younger singers had taken the stage. But
even at the age of 59, Melba had a remarkable voice.
When the Marconi company broadcast the world’s first
live solo performance by a professional musician, it asked
Melba to be the voice that listeners heard. She sang
“Home, Sweet Home” and other popular songs into a
home-made microphone created from a telephone mouthpiece and a cigar box. e signal
from London was heard in places as far away
as Iran and Newfoundland.
In 1926, Melba began a world farewell tour
that lasted four years. It was so lengthy that
Australians still use the expression “more
farewells than Dame Nellie”.
In a 2004 documentary for Australia’s ABC television, biographer
Jim Davidson said: “I think it’s
partly that she was a bit terrified of
what life would be like after
singing. Singing had been her whole
career, her whole life, and she had
been remarkably durable. I mean,
when she gives her farewell at
Covent Garden, it’s 1926, and
Forever young: a great
soprano who became a legend
Peach Melba:
named after the diva
Fotos: Interfoto (2); Mauritius
she’s 65, which is an amazingly late age for somebody to
be singing a complete role onstage in an opera.”
In 1931, Melba died mysteriously in Sydney after
having appeared to be healthy only a short time before.
e nuns who ran the hospital where she died kept the
reason secret for 70 years. eir report is shocking: in Europe, Melba had had a facelift. Having lived her life on
the stage, she felt she had to look as good as she could.
Facelifts were a new procedure, developed to help soldiers
who had been disfigured in the First World War. Soon actors, actresses and aristocrats were asking for them, too. But
the procedure was risky, because antibiotics were not yet in
use (see Spotlight 8/06).
Melba developed a fatal infection on the voyage home
and was in great pain. e whole of Australia mourned
appoint [E(pOInt]
audition [O:(dIS&n]
broadcast [(brO:dkA:st]
charm [tSA:m]
delivery [di(lIvEri]
disfigured [dIs(fIgEd]
dish [dIS]
durable: be ~ [(djUErEb&l]
emperor [(empErE]
farewell [)feE(wel]
fuel [fju:El]
ernennen
Vorsingen
senden
verzaubern
hier: Vortragsweise
entstellt
Speise
hier: sich lange halten
Kaiser
Abschied(s-)
nähren
her death, as did the rest of
the world. Jeff Brownrigg of
Australia’s National Film and
Sound Archive said: “e very
morning after, she’s on the front
page of the Neue Freie Presse in
Vienna. She makes it to newspapers
like that in Europe. It’s hard to imagine
many Australians who’d find their
death notice on the front page of
a foreign newspaper.”
Melba’s name lives on in two
kinds of food that were created for her:
Melba toast, a very thin toasted bread, and peach Melba,
an ice-cream dish.
•
mill [mIl]
mourn [mO:n]
mouthpiece [(maUTpi:s]
peach [pi:tS]
rage [reIdZ]
take the stage
[)teIk DE (steIdZ]
the very [DE (veri]
tone [tEUn]
unrivalled [Vn(raIv&ld]
worship [(w§:SIp]
Fabrik
trauern
Sprechmuschel
Pfirsich
Rausch, Manie
die Bühne erobern
schon
Klang
unübertroffen
Verehrung (→ p. 57)
Unsere Auswahl für Sprachliebhaber.
Entdecken Sie Ihre Leidenschaft für Sprachen.
+ Deutsch perfekt – Einfach Deutsch lernen
+ Spotlight – Das Magazin für Englisch
+ Écoute – Das Sprachmagazin für Frankreichliebhaber + Business Spotlight – Englisch für den beruflichen Erfolg
+ ECOS – Die Welt auf Spanisch
+ Spot on – Das Sprachmagazin in “Easy English”
+ ADESSO – Die schönsten Seiten auf Italienisch
www.spotlight-verlag.de