Customer Reviews

Great Singers: Nellie Melba

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I met only one person who remembered hearing Melba sing. He had been present, as a young man, at a performance of "La Boheme". So perfect was her Mimi, he told me, that he never wanted to spoil his recollection by seeing any other soprano in the role.

Buy this second CD of her complete London Gramophone Company recordings and you'll not only hear her singing Mimi's two arias, you'll also see her on the cover carrying a candle holder with an unlit candle. Alas, the real thing is only faintly indicated. Mimi's first aria is truncated. The voice is recorded at very low volume with piano accompaniment that is barely audible. It is not a poor flower maker in an attic that we see on the CD cover, asking for assistance to relight her candle, it is a richly-dressed diva carrying a candleholder through an inner door of an elegant London apartment.

All of which typifies for me the disparity that I always find myself up against when exposed to the Melba of repute and the Melba of the Gramophone recordings. Did all sopranos in their mid-40s record as unsuccessfully as this in the years 1905 and 1906?

Say what you will about how poorly the early gramophone served sopranos - from a purely technical perspective, Melba survives as the greatest female vocalist on record. Hers was the most exact trill, the most even scale, the most ravishing phrasing. The 1906 recordings in particular are very good indeed - the aria from Le Roi d'Ys may well be my favourite vocal recording of all. (Okay, I know its meant to be a tenor aria, but if a soprano can sing it like this, why not?) Listen to how she modulates her voice in something as simple as Auld Land Syne. The excessive portamento is not flattered by acoustic recording, but it cannot disguise the beauty of her pianissimo singing.

Melba was a singer in the grand manner, and her aristocratic approach may be out of step with the 21st century. But like all singers on early recordings, an effort must be made to place her in context. For myself, I can listen to this disc over and over. Any young singer today could do worse than to buy this disc and cherish the lessons it contains.

I met only one person who remembered hearing Melba sing. He had been present, as a young man, at a performance of “La Boheme”. So perfect was her Mimi, he told me, that he never wanted to spoil his recollection by seeing any other soprano in the role.

Buy this second CD of her complete London Gramophone Company recordings and you’ll not only hear her singing Mimi’s two arias, you’ll also see her on the cover carrying a candle holder with an unlit candle. Alas, the real thing is only faintly indicated. Mimi’s first aria is truncated. The voice is recorded at very low volume with piano accompaniment that is barely audible. It is not a poor flower maker in an attic that we see on the CD cover, asking for assistance to relight her candle, it is a richly-dressed diva carrying a candleholder through an inner door of an elegant London apartment.

All of which typifies for me the disparity that I always find myself up against when exposed to the Melba of repute and the Melba of the Gramophone recordings. Did all sopranos in their mid-40s record as unsuccessfully as this in the years 1905 and 1906?