MADAME MELBA

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 677, 26 February 1903, Page 11

MADAME MELBA

At last we are to hear the melodious Melba, the woman with the voice (says our Dunedin correspondent), of whom all the music-loving world have been reading of, speaking of, and hearing of for many months past. That Melba’s visit to this Colony has been eagerly looked forward to by a very large number of people was demonstrated in a practical manner on Wednesday, by the immense audience which assembled to hear the Queen of Bong. Melba is a much-photographed lady, and per medium of the illustrated papers, every one who is in the habit of Keeping in touch with the current topics of the day has a good idea of what kind of an appearance the famous songstress presents to her audiences, but the photos fail to convey the winning nature of the woman whom they endeavour to portray. Melba is evidently a very womanly woman and graciousness personified, as was evidenced in several ways during her brief stay in Dunedin. In taking the wtage, she comes on witn the easy grace Of one holding an assured and unassailable position. She smiles at her audience at the right 1 time, and naturally, and .not in the innane fashion of some artists who try to win their audiences by trickery and guile, only because well endowed dentally. She sings without any apparent effort, and her exhibition or test pieces. The aria from Lucia (Ardon gl’incensi), and her aria from Hamlet (Ophelia’s Mad Scene), may be classed as the greatest exhibition of vocal jugglery imaginable. Her voice is full of sympathy and melody, and never fails to stir that indefinable something which true artists have in common with their audiShe creates a desire to hear her again and again, and at the conclusion of her concert the audience did not display the slightest desire to go home, and be.® may be said to be the first artist whom I have noticed absolutely hold an audience. Her concluding song was Tosfi’s “ Good Bye,” and her rendition of that well-known melody was a revelation. In her last verse she put-such feeling into the song that, her histrionic power slightly interfered with her vocalisation, and fflhe did not fully sustain the last crescendo passage of the chorus. One would give a great deal to hear her in opera, but St is a very great treat to hear her in anything. She is undoubtedly a very great artist, and any one who hears her is sure to look back with extreme satisfaction to the red-letter day that they i heard Melba. | The Auckland musical population will have the opportunity to hear this talanted lady, on Tuesday and Thursday even-

ings, at the Opera House, and a bumper house is absolutely certain for each night.