Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip shows newsreel footage of Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba arriving back in Sydney aboard the passenger liner RMS Niagara in the early 1920s. It shows Melba accompanied by friends and family on the deck of the Niagara. The group poses for the camera with flautist John Lemmone on Melba’s left, while Melba holds the hand of her granddaughter. The clip includes an intertitle headed ‘DAME MELBA HOME’.

Educational value points

• One of the most famous Australians of her generation, Melba (1861–1931) was also Australia’s first international operatic star and the media regularly reported on her activities at home and abroad. By 1902 Melba was the leading soprano on the international stage. Her voice was celebrated for its purity of tone and even quality over nearly three octaves. Born Helen Porter Mitchell and nicknamed Nellie, she took Melba as a stage name in honour of Melbourne.

• After a moderately successful career in Australia under Pietro Cecchi in Melbourne, Melba went to Paris in 1886 to train with the celebrated vocal teacher Mathilde Marchesi. International success followed her European operatic debut in Brussels in 1887, with Melba appearing in all the major world opera houses and establishing herself as ‘prima donna’ (principal woman soloist) at London’s Covent Garden.

• This newsreel footage was probably shot in 1921, on the eve of Melba’s 1921–22 trip to Australia, where she held the hugely successful ‘Concerts for the People’ in Melbourne and Sydney – tickets were inexpensive and the concerts were attended by about 70,000 people. Melba made numerous tours of Australia between 1902 and 1928, performing to capacity audiences and introducing opera to the general public.

• Melba’s international career meant that she spent long periods away from Australia. However, by the 1920s she was increasingly returning to Australia, drawn back by family, the people, the landscape and ‘Coombe Cottage’, her home near Lilydale in Victoria. Melba never lost her affection for Australia. She wrote: ‘If you wish to understand me at all, you must understand first and foremost that I am an Australian’ (http://www.museum.vic.gov.au).

• Melba is shown in this clip with her long-time friend and manager, John Lemmone (1862-1949). A virtuoso flautist and composer, Lemmone made his solo debut alongside Melba in 1884. He was manager and associate artist on Melba’s 1902 Australian tour, auditioned singers for her 1911 season, then toured with her to NZ, the USA and Europe. During the First World War he organised Melba’s fundraising concerts. He made a number of recordings, some with Melba.

• The clip is taken from an item in an Australian newsreel called Australasian (formerly Australian) Gazette, a weekly compilation of film reports on current events shown in cinemas before the main film. Newsreels were a chief source of audiovisual news prior to the advent of television in 1956. Cinema programs usually included an international and a locally produced newsreel, each of which was about 12 minutes in length. Early newsreels were silent but often used intertitles.

• The outfit worn by Melba illustrates women’s fashion in the early 1920s, when women favoured loose-fitting dresses with dropped waistlines and hemlines at calf length. Melba’s fur coat is indicative of her wealth, both inherited and self-generated. In the 1920s women enjoyed a degree of social freedom unknown to earlier generations. Nevertheless, in the period women were not considered well dressed outdoors unless they wore a hat and gloves.