[Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS SHE FIRST APPEARED IN GRAND
OPERA.--GILDA IN "RIGOLETTO," BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 15, 1887.
_From a Photo. by J. Ganz, Brussels._]
To an observant student of the world's genius it is a reflection, not
without a peculiar interest of its own, that the Australian Continent
has so far produced but one woman-singer of the first rank. Of poets
whose genius is as undoubted as their place in the world's literature
is certain Australia has given us at least two, in Henry Kendall and
the gifted but ill-fated Adam Lindsay Gordon. To the drama this, the
"least contiguous" of the four continents, has contributed Haddon
Chambers--though the creator of "Captain Swift" and "The Idler" has
now dwelt among us so long as to be regarded as a fully naturalized
"Englander." The department of imaginative literature is already
represented by quite a little army from "down under," as the eminent
names of Mrs. Campbell Praed, "Tasma," Mr. Rolf Boldrewood, Miss Ada
Cambridge, Miss Ethel Turner, Mr. Guy Boothby, and the late Marcus
Clarke bear eloquent testimony; whilst the field of critical and
biographical writing finds a worthy representative in Mr. Patchett
Martin.
But Melba stands alone. Towering head and shoulders over every other
aspirant to the highest honours of grand opera, the retirement
of Madame Patti from the operatic field has left "the Australian
Nightingale" undisputed ruler of an empire probably the proudest in the
sum of this planet's most desirable possessions. Yet these are honours
becomingly and graciously worn by one who, scarcely a decade ago, was
little more than a name to the patrons and supporters of the opera.
As I sit in her _salon_ to-day, and chat with this queenly woman,
whose greatest charm assuredly lies in her consideration for others, I
wonder whether she ever recalls that little white-robed girl (herself)
who, in far-off Melbourne, in the dead of night, startled her parents
and brought them downstairs by her playing of Beethoven's "Moonlight
Sonata." It is a pretty story, with a prettier sequel. For the parents
of that little girl had not the heart to chide their offspring for her
"precocity" (that unmeaning word in which the beginnings of genius are
so often concealed), but rather did they coax her back to bed as they
marvelled over what they had heard. Surely they must, at that early
day, have had some faint glimmering of the future in store for the
coming _prima donna_!
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA BEFORE HER DÉBUT, 1887. _From a Photo. by
Chalot, Paris._]
"Perhaps they did--I do not know," says Madame Melba, dreamily. "But
one thing I know for certain--that their daughter did not cherish
any such aspirations for a long time to come. I went quietly on with
my education--no, not my musical education, that came later--until
my marriage, which took place at the early age of seventeen. Stop,
though! I was entirely forgetting to tell you the story of what I
call 'my first appearance on any stage.' It took place at the Town
Hall, Richmond, which is a suburb of Melbourne, and I was aged _six_
at the time! What did I sing? Let me see, now! Yes, I sang 'Shells of
the Ocean' first, followed by 'Comin' thro' the Rye.' It was a great
occasion, as you may imagine, and I am by no means certain that I am
not prouder of it than of anything I have done since."
On the question as to whence--if traceable at all--Madame Melba derives
her voice and natural musical gifts, she told me that her mother was an
accomplished musician. In addition to being a beautiful pianist, she
played also the organ and the harp. Thus it was that the future _prima
donna_ was reared so to speak in the lap of Music. Her mother was her
first teacher of the piano, and afterwards her studies were aided by
the exertions of her aunts Alice and Lizzie.
"Even as a child of three or four," she continued, "I was so
passionately devoted to music that I remember frequently crawling
under the piano and remaining quiet there for hours while listening
to my mother's playing. Yes, my mother sang also, though she had not
a particularly notable voice. But her sister, my 'Aunt Lizzie,' as
I called her, possessed a soprano voice of extraordinary beauty and
quality. To this day I can remember my aunt's absolute control of her
voice, and the beauty and ease of her execution even in the highest
_pianissimo_ passages. Indeed, I feel sure my Aunt Lizzie would have
enjoyed a brilliant career as a public singer, had she adopted it."
It should be mentioned that the _diva's_ father, Mr. David Mitchell,
is a squatter resident in the Colony of Victoria, and that his several
stations are far removed from important townships. The family now
reside at Colbin Abbin Estate; but in the days when Melba was a child
they lived at "Steel's Flat," another of her father's estates, where
she was born and brought up, with intermittent visits to Melbourne.
I was interested to find that the subject of this interview can also
trace the gift of music on the paternal side of the house. To this
day her father sings in the local choir, and his daughter told me she
well remembered his voice as a deep basso of beautiful _timbre_. He
has always been passionately fond of music, and is, in addition to his
vocal talent (to quote his daughter's own expression), "a fiddler of
no mean ability." Madame Melba speaks in the most affectionate terms
of both her parents. Her mother died while the great singer was in her
teens, but Melba cherishes many sweet recollections of her.
"She was a natural artist--not as regards music only, for one remembers
it in the general expression of her life. She was, among other things,
a charming painter on china, and the dessert-service still in use at
home was decorated by her brush.
"Did my father also foster my love of music? Yes, indeed he did, to
the utmost of his power. When I was quite a baby it was my great joy,
on Sunday afternoons, to sit on my father's knee at the harmonium.
He would blow the bellows with his feet, while singing a bass
accompaniment to the hymn which I would pick out on the key-board with
one finger."
Thus, finding that the Australian singer inherits the gift of song from
either side of her family, I inquired whether this passion for music
did not begin to take shape at a very tender age.
"In illustration that that was so," she answered, "I remember once our
family moving into 'winter quarters' at one of my father's outlying
stations. I was ten years old at the time, but I know I felt furious,
on arrival, to find that there was no piano in the house. My gentle
mother consoled me with the gift of _a concertina_, which I taught
myself to play during the three months that we remained there! In those
sequestered places, in the case of country houses very far removed from
a church or chapel, it is customary for a clergyman or lay preacher
to come along on Sundays and preach to the family, the servants, and
station hands--often quite a large congregation, particularly at
shearing-time.
"One Sunday--I was then, perhaps, thirteen years old--we were visited
by a worthy man, who chanced to be a particularly poor preacher. At
the conclusion of his very long and (as we children thought) somewhat
wearisome discourse, he suggested that we should sing a hymn. There
was a harmonium in the room, and my mother asked me to play a familiar
hymn. I accordingly seated myself, but, in revenge for having been
so bored, I played--to the horror of some and the secret delight of
others--a music-hall ditty which had succeeded in penetrating our
wilderness! It was called, 'You Should See Me Dance the Polka.' In the
sequel, I received the well-merited punishment of being sent to bed for
the remainder of the day.
"It must have been about the end of the same year that I had, what I
thought at the time, a very fearsome adventure indeed! It happened
at Melbourne. I was learning to play the organ, and I had permission
occasionally to practise on the great organ in the Scots Church. Late
one afternoon I ceased playing, and fell into a reverie. When, at
last, I proceeded to leave the church, I found, to my horror, I was
locked in! My playing having ceased for some time, the sexton had
concluded I was gone, and had locked up the church and left. You cannot
conceive the agony of mind I endured. The church was very dark, and the
pulpit and altar in their grey dust-cloths looked, to my frightened
imagination, like monstrous ghosts. What should I do?... At last the
sexton returned--by the merest chance he had forgotten something, which
he came back to fetch, and so I obtained my release."
About two years after her marriage, namely, at the age of nineteen,
Melba began concert singing. At first she sang as an amateur; but so
rapidly did she betray talents of an extraordinarily high order, that
she was strongly recommended to adopt the vocal art as a profession.
Upon this advice she acted, and came to England to study. The rest is
history.
It is, however, history of an exceedingly interesting character.
It will be seen that, in shaping her public career, Madame Melba
unconsciously moved in cycles of two years. Thus, she was married at
seventeen. At nineteen she commenced to sing publicly. At twenty-one
she came to Europe in order to study the art she had elected to follow.
At twenty-three occurred her _début_ on the operatic stage.
So far as operatic England is concerned, the distinction of introducing
Melba to the Covent Garden public belongs to the late Sir Augustus
Harris, who subsequently wrote a rather remarkable letter on the
subject of the Australian _débutante's_ quickly won popularity.
Madame Melba's initial appearance on the Covent Garden stage took
place in May, 1888, as the ill-fated heroine of Donizetti's "Lucia di
Lammermoor." Her success, both with the critics and with the public,
was so spontaneous and overwhelming, that her engagement for the next
(1889) London season was rendered inevitable. The new _prima donna's_
principal appearance of 1889 was in Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette," while
her performance in Verdi's "Rigoletto" exhibited how rapidly, to quote
Mr. Parker's "Opera Under Augustus Harris," "Madame Melba's popularity
was increasing in this country." In 1890 she created at Covent Garden
the character of _Ophelia_ in Dr. Ambroise Thomas's "Hamlet," which she
had the advantage of rehearsing with the composer himself.
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA IN "LAKMÉ," 1890. _From a Photo. by Dupont,
Brussels._]
In 1893 Melba went to America, to meet with a wholly unprecedented
success; but in '94 she was back at Covent Garden, to charm huge
audiences with her _Nedda_ in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" and her
_Marguerite_ in "Faust." Since then the cantatrice has appeared with
regularity during the London opera season. Two of her most interesting
appearances have been in "Carmen" three years ago, when that opera
was performed with the extraordinarily strong cast of Madame Calvé as
_Carmen_, Madame Melba as _Michaela_, and M. Alvarez as _Don José_;
and in "Les Huguenotś" in 1896, when Albani was the _Valentina_, and
Melba the _Margherita de Valois_. In that season, by the way, a gloom
was cast over English musical life by the deaths of Sir Joseph Barnby
and Sir Augustus Harris, the latter being a personal friend of Madame
Melba, and of whom she cherishes many pleasant recollections.
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, 1891. _From a
Photo. by Nadar, Paris._]
But then, as I told the Australian _prima donna_, in her case "pleasant
recollections" must of necessity multiply themselves, by virtue of the
numbers of the world's great ones with whom her art and her remarkable
gifts have brought her in contact. And yet she remains so wholly and
entirely a "womanly woman," that I verily believe she values the esteem
and admiration of the lowliest peasant as highly as that of the great
ones of the earth.
In respect of the personal friendships to which I have just made
reference, the _diva_ has delightful remembrances of masters like the
veteran Verdi, Charles Gounod (with whom she had the privilege of
rehearsing his "Faust" and "Roméo et Juliette"), poor Goring Thomas,
the creator of "Esmeralda," Tosti, and Puccini. In the case of the
latter composer, she studied her part in his "La Bohème" (a new
assumption) with him in Southern Italy last summer; and, if all that
we hear be true, she is destined to win fresh laurels in the same
composer's newest work, "La Tosca," in which Puccini does for Sardou's
tragic story what Verdi has done for Shakespeare's "Othello."
Nellie Melba is a woman of rare enthusiasms. In conversation with me,
she could not say too much in praise of Madame Matilde Marchesi--the
only singing-teacher she has ever had--and whom she speaks of in terms
of warmest affection and sympathy.
I asked the _prima donna_ whether she has ever experienced the
excitement and danger of a theatre fire. "Yes, on two occasions," she
told me; "in San Francisco and in London. In both cases the danger was
happily averted. At Covent Garden the outbreak happened actually on
the stage during a performance of 'Faust,' and the curtain had to be
rung down. I chanced to be in the 'wings' at the time, and while they
were battling with the flames behind the curtain, I came in front and
begged the people to remain seated. Fortunately that most terrible of
calamities, a theatre panic, was averted. As soon as I found myself
behind the scenes once more I committed the weakness of fainting."
There have been, not unnaturally, some striking incidents connected
with Melba's enormous popularity at the Paris Opera House. There is
one of them, however, to which a pathetic interest attaches by reason
of the comparatively recent death of Madame Carnot, who figured in it
in very sympathetic fashion. The opera was "Lucia di Lammermoor"--one
of Melba's greatest, if not her very greatest assumption. It happened
that the tenor, Monsieur Cossira, arrived at the Opera House feeling
very unwell, but apparently recovering before the opera began he
decided to go on. Early in the first act, however, he almost completely
lost his voice! When it came to the duet with _Lucia_ in the first
act, it utterly failed him. The _prima donna_, full of sympathy for
his difficulty, for a time sang his music as well as her own; but
ultimately the curtain had to be rung down, and for a few moments it
appeared as though the performance could not proceed, since--surely
a thing unprecedented at the Paris Opera House--Monsieur Cossira was
not provided with an understudy! As luck would have it, though, among
the audience was M. Engel, who had sung the part with Melba, not long
before, in Brussels. Grasping the situation, he went behind the scenes
and proffered his services, which were gladly and gratefully accepted.
The performance proceeded, and for several nights thereafter M. Engel
sang the part.
"At the close of the evening," added Madame Melba, in telling me of the
incident, "Madame Carnot sent for me. It was during Monsieur Carnot's
reign at the Elysée, and so his wife was occupying the Presidential box
at the Opera. Being a woman of very quick perception, Madame Carnot had
observed my efforts at covering the confusion of my poor colleague. I
can never forget her kind words to me then, nor shall I readily forget
the sorrow I felt afterwards on hearing the news of President Carnot's
terrible end, and of her own death subsequently."
By the time this interview appears in print, Madame Melba will be
in the thick of her fifth visit to the United States. Her previous
operatic tours of the American Continent have been full of varied and
interesting experiences. One of the most characteristic "Melba stories"
that I know dates from her last tour but one. It was at St. Louis,
where, thanks to a late train, the _diva_ and her company arrived
only a very little time before the hour fixed for the commencement.
There was, in fact, only just time for the artists to make for their
respective dressing-rooms. But Melba, looking down from a coign of
vantage into the orchestra, observed, to her dismay and annoyance, that
her musicians were in morning dress. She promptly sent for the _chef
d'orchestre_. The poor man expostulated, remonstrated; they had but a
few minutes before come off the cars; there was no time, etc. But Melba
was firm. "If the gentlemen of my orchestra do not choose to appear in
evening dress, I shall refuse to go on the stage. I owe a duty to the
public as well as to myself."
This inexorable mandate had its effect, and the musicians were soon
seen filing out of the orchestra, to return a few minutes later,
suitably clad in the evening garb of comparative civilization. Then the
curtain rose and the opera commenced--only a very little behind time.
The incident did not, however, pass unrecognised. The critics of the
Press had seen the musicians disappear and re-appear, and correctly
surmising the cause of their "quick change," the result was a series
of graceful little articles in the St. Louis papers complimenting the
popular favourite upon her sense of the fitness of things.
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS JULIETTE, 1892. _From a Photo. by
Dupont, Brussels._]
An incident without precedent on the concert stage marked the concert
which Melba gave at the Albert Hall, on November 2nd, to signalize her
departure for her present trans-Atlantic tour. Of the three principal
performers--_i.e._, Madame Melba herself, Miss Ada Crossley, the
contralto, and Mr. Johann Kruse, the solo violinist--all were not only
Australians, but Victorians by birth.
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS OPHÉLIE, 1895 _From a Photo. by
Reutlinger, Paris._]
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA, 1893. _From a Photo. by Renque et Cie,
Paris._]
Immediately after her few but brilliant appearances at Covent Garden
last season, Madame Melba rented a charmingly-situated house, called
"Fernley," near the river at Maidenhead. Here she entertained many
friends during the month of August. A very interesting "group"
photograph of three distinguished Australians--Melba, Mr. Haddon
Chambers, and Mr. Bertram MacKennal--taken at that time on the lawn at
Fernley, is shown at the top of this page. It will be interesting to
your readers that the last-named distinguished compatriot of Madame
Melba's is executing a bust of the _diva_, which she has decided to
present to the Public Library of Melbourne. A bust of the Melbourne
Melba, by the Melbourne MacKennal, is obviously an artistic event of
peculiar interest.
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA, MR. HADDON CHAMBERS, AND MR. BERTRAM
MACKENNAL. _From a Photo. by H. Gude, Maidenhead._]
By the way, the popular morning "daily" that unwittingly represented
Melba as an athletic kind of lady, skilled in the gentle art of
rowing, was sadly in error! Far and away the most interesting episode
of the stay at Fernley was a visit which the _prima donna_ and some
members of her house-party paid to the grave of the poet Gray in
Stoke Poges churchyard. Here, it will be remembered, Gray wrote his
beautiful "Elegy"; and here, too, Melba (who, I omitted to say, is an
accomplished organist, and often used to play that instrument in the
Scots Church at Melbourne) expressed a desire to try the organ in the
charming old church of Stoke Poges.
Thereby hangs this tale: The rector, on it being represented to him
that "Madame Melba would like to play the organ," courteously handed
over the necessary keys, and Melba gave great pleasure to her audience
of half-a-dozen friends by playing and singing for them a selection
of pieces, which included the Gounod "Ave Maria," and ended with
the National Anthem. Asked by one of the party how she had enjoyed
the impromptu sacred concert, the old lady who was in charge of the
church, and whose services had been requisitioned to blow the organ,
enthusiastically rejoined, "Oh, it were all beautiful, m'm, but 'God
Save the Queen' were best of all!"
Madame Melba is fortunate in having some one member of her family--a
brother or sister, generally speaking--to accompany her on her
travels. During her last American tour she had for companions both
a sister and a brother--Miss Dora and Mr. Ernest Mitchell--and she
still speaks of the regret with which she parted from them when they
were obliged to return to their Antipodean home about the end of the
last London season. She says she is not less fortunate in having a
man like Mr. Charles A. Ellis (originally the business manager of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra) to personally conduct her trans-Atlantic
tours. The present one will be very much extended, and will involve the
traversing of many thousands of miles by the _diva_ and her company.
The principal members of that company are Ternina, Zélie de Lussan, and
Gadski, Alvarez, Bonnard, Pandolfini, Kraus, and Bonderesque, and the
orchestra is controlled by Signor Seppilli and Mr. Walter Damrosch.
As for Melba's répertoire, it comprises not only two _rôles_ quite
new to her--"Martha" and "La Bohème"--but also "Lucia," "Hamlet,"
"Manon," "Les Huguenots," "La Traviata," "Rigoletto," "Faust," "Roméo
et Juliette," and "Il Barbière di Siviglia"--in the last-named of which
she scored such a shining success at Covent Garden last season. While
on the subject of America, I may mention that Madame Melba seriously
meditates refusing an offer for a season in South America, which I take
to be the most dazzling and tempting ever made to a _prima donna_. She
whimsically says that she thinks she would rather spend the greater
part of 1899 in Europe, although she looks forward with pleasure to a
visit to South America later on.
I am reminded of one more "Melba anecdote." Two or three years ago she
took a party of friends to see the interior of La Scala, the noble
opera-house where many of her triumphs have been won. Throwing open
the door of a dressing-room, their cicerone exclaimed, "This is where
the celebrated Melba used to dress!" The great singer's friends began
to laugh, but she, looking hard at the man, quietly asked him, "What!
don't you know me?" And then this son of Italy perceived that, _sans_
voice and _sans_ diamonds though she might be, she still was "Melba."
It is, I think, illustrative of Madame Melba's large humanity that the
simpler and more sympathetic the anecdote, the better is she pleased to
tell it. For example, "one touch of nature" is to her much more than
to tell of her many meetings with Royalty--of her brilliant career as
queen of opera--of her impressions of the many great ones of the world
into whose society she has been thrown. Of her _début_ in opera she
readily speaks, for must it not always rank as one of her pleasantest
memories? It occurred at the Brussels Opera House, and at the age of
twenty-two. Not at that time knowing French, Melba was permitted to
sing in Italian, while the other artists sang French--an unprecedented
concession to a _débutante_ on the part of the local opera authorities.
On that memorable evening, the next box to the one occupied by some
friends and relatives of Madame Melba contained a lady and gentleman.
At the close of the first act, the latter asked his companion as to
her opinion of the _débutante_, when the lady was heard to reply,
"_Débutante!_ Nonsense! I heard her in Madrid ten years ago. She was an
awful failure, and _she's forty if she's a day_!"
"Did you feel any resentment when you heard the story?" I asked.
"Not in the least," replied Madame Melba, laughing merrily, "albeit in
those early days I had not grown accustomed, as, alas! I have since,
to hearing strangely false reports about myself--reports sometimes
amazing, sometimes absurd, and sometimes, I fear, malicious. Besides, I
was in far too good a humour with the public success I had achieved to
feel angry; and if the story appears in your article, and the lady sees
it, I shall feel amply avenged."
Two incidents in connection with her first American tour were related
to me so feelingly by the _prima donna_, that I must do my best
to reproduce them. The first occurred in New York. Melba had been
practising her part at her hotel one afternoon. Just as she had
finished, and was coming out of her rooms, she encountered a strange
lady, whose rooms opened into the same corridor. The unknown approached
her, and said, "Madame, I think you would be touched to hear what my
little boy said just now. He is lying in bed getting over an illness;
and when you began to sing he lifted his tiny forefinger and whispered,
'Hist, mummy! Birdie!'"
[Illustration: MADAME MELBA (PRESENT DAY). _From a Photo. by
Reutlinger, Paris._]
The second incident referred to occurred one snowy night as the _diva_
was leaving the stage-door of the Opera House at Philadelphia. An old
lady, very neatly attired, but evidently not in affluent circumstances,
was waiting for her as she crossed the foot-way to her carriage. When
Madame Melba appeared the old lady remarked, "Madame, I have just
heard you sing, and I've waited here in the hope that you will let me
take your hand." Melba, deeply touched, impulsively kissed the old
lady on either cheek. This salutation won from its recipient these
simple words, which Melba says she will never forget, "God bless your
beautiful heart, my dear!"
My interesting visit to Madame Melba terminated with, on my
part, a very natural regret. I carried away with me an indelible
impression--the impression of a queenly woman, an incomparable
artist, bearing her unrivalled gifts and her regal position in the
world of music with a simplicity and a womanly modesty which, while
unable to enhance their value, add a singular grace and charm to
their possession. And I found it a pleasing reflection that I had
been accorded an audience of a queen who is delightfully unconscious
of her sovereignty, and who, even if robbed of the gifts which now
enchant the world, would still retain those qualities which enchant her
friends--her bright intelligence, her ever-ready sympathies, and her
true womanliness.
[Illustration: