CRITICISM OF MELBA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 41, 18 February 1932, Page 3

CRITICISM OF MELBA

YOUNG NOVELIST’S BOOK. AUSTRALIANS INDIGNANT. Adverse comments were made in Melbourne on the report that Beverley Nichols had used a character in a novel to disguise an unflattering portrait of Dame Nellie Melba. Beverley Nichols, who was Melba’s secretary when she visited Australia for the grand opera season in 1924, says that all characters in his book are fictitious. Sir George Tallie, who has memories of a long association with Melba during his life-long connection with theatrical enterprises, and who paid a splendid tribute to her when he retired from the board of J. C. Williamson recently, said that, on the cabled report, he would characterise Beverley Nichol’s action as shocking and indefensible. It seemed to argue a total lack of the loyalties and an appalling sense of ingratitude. Mr. John Tait could find no justification for a harsh portrait of Melba, who, although temperamental, like many great artists, was a very kindly woman and always helpful to young genius. Nichols, whom he had met with Melba in 1924, was a very clever young man, who, however, was very devoted to his own interests. Mr. Daryl Lindsay, artist, who had known Melba for 20 years, and whose house Nichols had visited with the singer, thought that th e report sounded like the evidence of a cheap form of sensationalism where notoriety was achieved at the expense of good taste and decent feeling. “Such a book can have no lasting effect on the memory of a great singer and a fine patriot,” he said. “Melba was human, but a grerat character, a big woman, to whom ingratitude unthinkable.” Mr. Cyril Dillon, artist and etcher, who had many associations with Melba during her life-time, said she had really brought Nichols into public notice, and through her he met many of the people about whom he afterwards wrote. With her usual kindness, she had given him a post with, little or nothing to do, in order to give him experience. As her protege he saw a great C?al of the world with her as a very young man, and received priceless experience for which, he ought to be for ever grateful. “I cannot understand why he has done it; it is quite unpardonable,” said Mr. John Lemmone, who was a lifelong friend of Melba. “He was Melba’s secretary for a time, and he stayed six months at Coombe Cottage. She was wonderfully kind to him, and treated him as if he were a member of the family. I could say a lot, but I would not be as spiteful as the cable suggests Mr. Nichols has been.”