ESTATE OF QUEEN OF SONG.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18848, 10 April 1931, Page 9

ESTATE OF QUEEN OF SONG.

Dame Melba’s Generosity. HOSTS OF BEQUESTS PROVIDED. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received April 9, 8.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, April 9. The cumulative value of Dame Melba's property will not be known for many months, but the approximate value is £200,000. The Victorian portion Is worth £50,000 and the American at least £IOO,OOO. The diva also owned considerable residential property in Sydney. During the war, however, she suffered heavy losses In foreign securities. Her son, George Armstrong, his wife and daughter, Pamela, are the residuary beneficiaries, while an annuity of £250 is provided for the diva's lifelong friend, John Lemmone, the noted flautist. Miss Pamela Armstrong receives the priceless Jewels which were gifts of the crowned heads of Europe during Melba's heyday, also the little brooch of pearls and rubies presented to Melba by Queen Victoria. Hosts of relatives, friends, faithful servants, rich and poor benefit under the will. Valuable antiques, pictures and art collections are to be sold to provide numerous legacies, of which £IOOO has been bequeathed to Mrs Annie Purchas, Remuera road, Auckland, while Frank and Lucy Purchas each receive 12000. Another bequest of £BOOO goes to the Melbourne Conservatorium of music, to provide a Melba scholarship, the testatrix expressing a hope that another Melba may arise. BRILLIANT CAREER. FROM TRIUMPH TO TRIUMPH. ONE OF WORLD'S GREATEST SINGERS. Dame Nellie Melba died on February 23 at St. Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney. By her death Australia has lost her most prominent representative daughter and world singer, who followed Adelina Patti as the reigning operatic soprano of her generation and her century in Europe. The golden voice which inspired the world and the picturesque personality that has charmed thousands passed to the beyond. Her passing was as courageous and as fine as her public life. Dame Nellie Melba was the professional name of Helen Porter Armstrong. Her father, David Mitchell, had settled in Australia. He was proud of his child's precocious musical talent, and allowed her to sing at a concert in the Richmond Town Hall when she was only six years old, but objected to her adopting the stage as a profession. It was only after her

marriage to Captain Charles Armstrong in 1882 that the young soprano (she was then only 23) finally determined to follow a musical career; nor did she go to Europe until the spring of 1886, when, after a solitary appearance at Prince's Hall, London, she went to Paris to study under Madame Marches!.

Her period of tutelage was rapid and brilliant. After twelve months her teacher pronounced her ready for the stage, and on 12th October, 1887, she made her debut as Gilda at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels, under the name of “Melba,'' derived from her native city, Melbourne. She achieved instantaneous success, and was soon afterwards engaged for a season of Italian opera at Covent Garden in 1888. Her debut at the famous opera house was as Lucia, on 24th May, 1888. From the outset the London public was rapturous in its acceptance of her. Critics readily perceived that there was still lacking the complete equipment of a really great and finished artist, but no one could gainsay the uncommon nature of her endowments —the extraordinary brilliance of her silvery tone, its bright quality, and remarkable evenness throughout a compass of two and a half octaves, and the excellence of a method which plainly owed as much to nature as it did to art. In her brilliant execution of the most difficult fioriture, nothing Impressed more than the flexibility of the instrument, unless it was the unfailing ease and sense of restraint with which she accomplished these feats and turned a difficulty into a triumph. The rare faculty of using her tone within rather than beyond its true limit of resonant power has remained one of the most striking and influential features of the Melba method all through the years. Once she was induced to essay the part of BrunnhUde, in “Siegfried,” but sang It for a single night only, she realised that the Wagner of the "Ring” was not for her.

In 1889 Madame Melba made her debut at the Paris Opera, singing Ophelia with great success to the Hamlet of Lassalle. she also prepared the roles of Marguerite and Juliette under the personal supervision of Gounod, and later in the year understock both at covent Garden, where Romeo et Juliette” was given >n French for the first time. In conjunction with Jean Edouard de Reske she shared a notable triumph in these operas, while her resources of voice and dramatic ability both showed an advance. Thereafter she took part regiflariy in every season at Covent Gai den, without missing a single paiTth 1890 Sh 6 3dded Parts those of Elsa, in “Lohengrin" and Esmeralda, in the French revival o Goring Thomas’s opera. Subsequently, she added Violetta (“La Traviata”), Micaela ("Carmen”), Roslna “II Barbiere”), and the Queen ‘Les Huguenots”). In 1894 i she created in London the role of Nedda, in “Pagllacci,” and ten years later that of Helene in the opera of that name written for her by Saint Saens. in M9l. she accompanied the de Resake*

to St. Petersburg, by special invitation of the Tsar, and in 1892 she sang at La Scala, Milan. At both places she was received with extraordinary warmth and she followed her success by a triumphant tour of Italy. The following year she fulfilled what was to be the first of many engagements in the United States, making her debut with the de Reszkes at Chicago during the World Fair, and in 1894 sang for the first time at the Handel Festival.

In 1902, after an absence of sixteen years, she returned to Australia, making her appearance in Melbourne on 27th September, and subsequently touring Australia. During the rest of her life she continued to travel much, dividing her attention between England and Australia, and the growth of her reputation, like her work, was incessant. She also received many decorations, the principal being that of Dame Commander of the British Empire. One historic occasion was when* in 1904, she sang at Buckingham Palace for the entertainment of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, of Austria, whose assassination was the signal for the World War, and when Queen Alexandra pinned on her breast the Order of Science, Art and Music. In January, 1907, her appearance rescued from financial disaster Oscar Hammerstein’s first enterprise In the field of opera. That season saw her singing the parts of Lucia, Gilda, Mimi and Violetta with greater success than ever, and the houses were extraordinary. And so the record went on year by year until her Australian visit of 1928, which resulted in losses to the promoters, and the announcement of her impending retirement, which was made in 1926. She did not retire then, but was lured back to the platform again and again.