Marvelous Melba: The Extraordinary Life of a Great Diva [Hardcover]

Ann Blainey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2009

"Nobody sings like Melba, and nobody ever will," proclaimed the impresario Oscar Hammerstein in 1908. Like many others of his time, he considered her the world's greatest singer. The wild acclaim showered on her by American fans led to the coining of the word "Melbamania." Year after year she toured America on the "Melba" train, bringing opera and concerts to out-of-the-way cities and towns; thanks to the new gramophone, she could also be heard in the remotest locales. Ann Blainey's beguiling life of Nellie Melba tells the story of a woman who-in an era when no woman was prime minister, chief justice, head of a church or financial firm, or a universal film star-became perhaps the most famous woman in the world. Ms. Blainey's Marvelous Melba punctures many of the myths surrounding Melba's life and career, and offers a new portrait of the great diva.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In her day, Nellie Melba (1861–1931) was the premiere bel canto soprano. She sang only a limited number of operatic roles and, in concerts, only a limited number of songs. Yet she was lastingly beloved by her fans, who recalled her for encore upon encore. Trained in Melbourne, Australia, she went to Paris early to study with Mathilde Marchesi, who became her confidant and advisor. Melba (a stage name derived from her hometown) sang in the best opera houses of Britain, Europe, the Americas, and Australia and also organized her own traveling companies to tour North America and Australia. Craving social contacts, she surrounded herself with royalty and aristocracy and hosted soirées with many guests at her London, Paris, and Melbourne homes. Always meticulous, paying attention to every detail of each endeavor, she sang almost to the very end of her life, though her health faded after age 65. Blainey uncovered previously ignored letters and other documents that enable much insight into Melba’s personality and her hardships and joys. Proceeding chronologically, Blainey writes directly and indulges in little commentary. Melba comes through in all her glory. --Alan Hirsch

Review

Lasting value to opera history as a whole. (Midwest Book Review )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; First Edition edition (March 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566638097
• ISBN-13: 978-1566638098
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,571,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I am Melba!, November 8, 2009

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marvelous Melba: The Extraordinary Life of a Great Diva (Hardcover)

Nellie Melba became the first internationally known opera singer from Australia, and when she hit the top, she stayed ther for forty years. Ann Blainey's biography is what they used to call compulsively readable, and will provide even those who thought they knew Melba with many new insights. Perhaps it might have reached five star level had we learned more about Melba's music itself, but Blainey is not a musicologist per se and seems more interested in aspects of 19th and 20th century performance style, and of course the progress of a flamboyant woman through the world, than she does about what made Melba so special as a singer.

That's okay, there is still plenty left to admire about this book. Melba was born Nellie Mitchell and even from birth seems to have been headstrong and willful, not content to stay on the farm and stay married to good old Charlie. Her treatment of her son, George, was even more cold you might say--basically she just abandoned him and went on to Europe and England to further her career, though in later years, as Blainey shows, she became fairly obsessed with reconnecting with the boy she had left behind, and he did indeed come back to her in middle age. Melbourne, the town where she was born (as was Ann Blainey) was of two minds about her, pride and scorn mixed together. She was in some ways the victim of Australia's "tall poppy syndrome," wherein those who stand a little taller than the run of the mill populace are put down and pilloried. But Melba loved Melbourne and indeed, changed her name to remind people of where she was from. Her name was her way of keeping herself real, even when she went on to live the life of an international diva and take on more affectations than most opera stars before and since. People loved her though, because she never forgot her roots. She co-starred with Caruso, with John McCormack, with her favorite Jean de Reszke. and in some of the most glittering productions of her day, but she always went home when she could, back to Melbourne. In this way she reminds me of my favorite pop singer, Kylie Minogue, whose career followed a similar path, back and forth from Melbourne. Well, Kylie is very different of course, excuse me opera buffs.

Kings and princes adored Melba, and musicians loved her, too. Early on she became a particular favorite of a generation of French composers whose works she triumphed in--Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, Delibes, many more. Saint-Saens created an opera for her, Helene. She tried singing Wagner though her heart wasn't into it, primarily because shifting markets wanted a singing actress in their opera now, following Wagner conception of opera as total theater, a totalizing art form that would combine all arts into one. And oh how she loved her jewels! And yet we see that Melba fetishized her love of jewels and made it a prominent part of her press releases in part to imitate the earlier diva, Adelina Patti.

Valiantly fighting rumors of facelifts, Melba met her maker in 1931. Thanks to Ann Blainey, something of her spirit is still aliove, just as she herself predicted many years ago now. She shines.

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine survey including newly discovered letters, diaries and legal documents, September 18, 2009

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marvelous Melba: The Extraordinary Life of a Great Diva (Hardcover)

MARVELOUS MELBA: THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF A GREAT DIVA offers a fine survey of opera's first international star, and is based on research in three continents. This deserves ongoing recommendation for any music library where opera is a key interest: it provides a fine survey including newly discovered letters, diaries and legal documents to create a different story of her life and achievements with lasting value to opera history as a whole.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Summer's Best Biography!, May 20, 2009

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BookManBookWoman TV REVIEWS "Saralee Terry Woods" (Nashville, Tn United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marvelous Melba: The Extraordinary Life of a Great Diva (Hardcover)

Before there were the divas of today who are twittering their lives away there was Nellie Melba who was not only a tough broad but an opera star who took no prisoners as she became one of the world's most famous and powerful.