MEMORIES OF MELBA

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 78, 11 March 1931, Page 2

MEMORIES OF MELBA

GREAT AUSTRALIAN INCIDENTS OF CAREER KEEN BUSINESS SENSE Around the name of every great man or woman anecdotes cluster. Many ot these are necessarily apocryphal; Lliey lit so nearly to the character of the person to whom they are attributed that "they ought to be true." Of Dame Nellie Melba, however, there are so many authenticated stories (says the Melbourne "Herald") that the biographer of the future will have no need to turn to the inventor. The day after her death Melba and her wonderful career were topics of conversation among hundreds of people, notably her friends with whom she has been intimately associated for so long. Mr. Charles Tait, who was the actual manager of her benefit concert, held to enable her to storm the Continent, recalled the fact that the occasion yielded only a scant £6O, to the young singer's intense disappointment. "I remember the concert well," said Mr. Tait. "Few realised then how historic it was to be, particularly those who stayed away in such large numbers. Behind the platform stood Cecchi, her teacher. Melba stood up to sing 'Ah! fors e lui.' She was wearing the fashionable black velvet band round her throat. As she sang, her throat was constricted by this, and with characteristic fierceness she tugged at it, broke it, and threw it to the floor. Her glorious voice rang out triumphantly. When Crowd Fought Police "Curiously enough, after that comparative \fiasco, financially speaking," went on Mr. Tait, "it was my lot to be associated with her in her signal triumph on her return. She came back under the management of Mr. George Musgrove, and some serious muddling in the arrangements during the Sydney season caused her to send an S.O.S. to Mr. George Allan, who had been her life-long friend. I was sent by Mr. Allan to straighten out the tangle. "The concert so organised drew an immense audience, and it netted the huge sum of £2,600. There was some trouble at the hall, for hundreds of disappointed people rushed the place, and a score of police had to fight hard to keep tmrA out. 1 bore for some time a souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a smashed thumb. I had tried to told a door against the inrush." Mr. Phil Finkelstein, of the firm of J. C. Williamson, among a hundred recollections of Melba, grave and gay, has one imperishable memory which he cherishes. The diva's dressing room was next to his room in the firm's offices at His Majesty's Theatre, and during the performance of "Otello" he would hear a tiny ghost of exquisite melody issuing from Melba's room. It was the "Willow Song," that tender, melancholy thing which used to reduce audiences to tears in the last act. It was Melba's habit to attune herself to the atmosphere of tragedy of that tremendous act by crooning to herself Desdemona'a swan sTTng. "I would listen to this thread of melody," said Mr. Finkelstein, "and then I would hear the dressing room door opened, and looking out, would see, not Melba, but Desdemona's self, stately, sad, wronged, passing on her way to her doom."

Personal Supervision Mr. Finkelstein is one of the Round Table of Melba knights to wear her insigna for distinguished service. "She was so dominant, so imperious that busy city men, filled with their own affairs, had i\p thought of disobedience when they received the Royal summons to render service," he said. "She would telephone, and we would drop our work to obey." Recalling her as a businesswoman, Mr. Finkelstein said that her acumen, her attention to the slightest detail of a project, were at curious variance with what is known as the artistic temperament. "She would come into my office," he said, "and discuss programmes, designs, furniture, hangings, a hundred matters that generally lie outside the ken of artists. During the decoration of His Majesty's prior to the wonderful 1924 Grand Opera season, she supervised personally, sometimes the livelong day, the work of painters and furnishers, much of whose product she herself designed." Kissed the Storeman Mr. Charles Wenman, who was for long friend and co-worker of Melba's, recollected to-day some of the whimsicalities of her career. Everyone knows the downright nature she had, the contempt, for mere appearance. She would come to the theatre to rehearse in clothes suited to the job in hand, minus frills and furbelows. It was thus that she met. with an adventure over which she often laughed. "She wished to go to the property loft on one occasion," said Mr. Wenman, "and stepped into the lift installed in the store. The storeman on duty did not know her, and he called out, supposing the intruder was some unknown and unauthorised person: 'Hey, you! Come out of that there lift!' "Melba answered in kind, and a dialogue ensued, the diva not. revealing who she was. Subsequently, when the storeman discovered to whom he had refused the freedom of the store, he wrote a letter of apology. Melba's reply was to go to see him. She laughed at the old man's discomfiture, and gave him a, hearty kiss in token of forgiveness." Racing a Reporter Sporting to her finger-tips, she was always ready to take a chance. On one occasion, if the writer may bo allowed to recall a personal experience, he sought an interview by telephoning to Coombe. It was vigorously denied, for Melba wished to keep secret a little longer a design she was planning. The journalist putting fortune to the touch, motored to

Coombe to try extra persuasions. Between Lilydale and Coldstream his car and Melba's met. A defiant "Catch me if you can," followed by a gay laugh, was a challenge which heid in it the hint of a prize, in the form of an interview. Melba's car sped on; the other turned in pursuit. The diva leant forward and spoke to her chauffeur, who clapped on sail. The newspaper car responded, and at fifty miles an hour the race was on. Just at His Majesty's Theatre it ended, with Melba a prisoner, just as she was about to cross the footpath. Flushed and excited with the chase; she surrendered at discretion and granted the interview.