DAME NELLIE MELBA.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15867, 13 December 1923, Page 6

DAME NELLIE MELBA.

JOURNALISTS' TRIBUTES.

Dame Nellie Melba was the principal guest at a complimentary luncheon given by the Institute of Journalists In Sydney. Mr C. Brunsdon Fletcher (president) occupied the chair, and the guests included: —Prince Alexis Obolensky, Messrs E. J. Tait, Frank Tait, Mrs Armstrong (Dame Nellie's daugh- ? ter-in-law), and Mr and Mrs John Lemmone. Mr Fletcher expressed pleasure at the presence of Dame Nellie. "These are not formal luncheons," said Mr Fletcher, "and we take it as a compliment if our guests will tell us candidly what they think of us —even though we may not agree." Mr Gerald Marr Thompson, proposing the health of Dame Nellie Melba, described her as Australia's greatest daughter, world-acclaimed as the reigning operatic soprano of her generation, a shining and romantic figpre among the few favourites of the past hundred years destined to live In history. Happy to be ttaok. "What can I say to rout Only that lam so happy to be Back. Recently in America an American man dared to say to me, 'Tell me something about that Australia of yours; we only think of it as a vast island with nothing but kangaroos hanging about.' My reply was, 'You impertinent brute; get out I' "I have never before had the honour of being among so many journalists, and it is up to you to have more propaganda about Australia. You are not known in America. Why? Because there is never a thing about Australia in the American papers. 1 have half a mind to start a paper there myself. So, if you want to please me, you will send cables and cables to the papers abroad, telling the good things about Australia."

Mr Henry Russell, art director of the Melba tour, responding, said: "Out Melba is the last of the old school of singers. The singers of today are more the product of the great machine called the press than of their own merit." The press, said Mr Russell could become a great factor in building up the art of a new country. He told how his father, who had known all the great singers of his day, had said to him of Melba, "There has never been such a voice before, and there never will be a voice like it again."