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Dame Nellie’s ‘Fans’ Gather at the Library

Professor Mel Waters, Director, Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music
Photo: Loui Seselja

Louise Page as Dame Nellie Melba
Photo: Robyn Holmes

A fan belonging to Dame Nellie Melba, signed by 25 stars of Melba's day
Melba Conservatorium Collection
Photo: Robyn Holmes

Audience members examine treasures from the Melba Conservatorium Collection
Photo: Loui Seselja


On Friday 25 July over 110 Friends of the National Library of Australia and invited guests gathered to celebrate the life of Australia’s first international superstar, Dame Nellie Melba. The unusual event marked the Library’s acquisition of one of the nation’s most important Melba collections. The archive belongs to the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne which will close its doors as an independent teaching institution at the end of this year to become the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust.

The Director of the Melba Conservatorium, Professor Mel Waters, attended Friday’s event and expressed delight that the collection was finding a permanent home at the Library. He was particularly pleased that all the historical documents, artefacts and memorabilia, collected over its 108-year history, will remain together as the Melba Conservatorium Collection. The new acquisition includes music manuscripts, sheet music, photographs, programs, correspondence and clippings, many relating to Melba herself who taught at the Conservatorium, as well as documentary records from 1891 to 2008.

Canberra soprano Louise Page recreated Dame Nellie’s eventful and famous life in a performance interweaving reminiscences in Melba’s own words and performing many of the songs and arias which made her world famous. The story of her early life in Australia, her move to Europe and subsequent success, her adoption by high society, frequent returns to Australia, and legendary repeated ‘farewell’ tours were vividly brought to life and complemented by a display of Melba’s personal letters, photos, silk programs, scrapbooks and sheet music.

At the interval the audience had a rare opportunity to examine some of the newly-acquired international treasures as well as an array of beautiful memorabilia from the Library’s existing extensive collection of Melba holdings. In pride of place was a white fan of Melba’s, inscribed with 25 signatures of other stars of the day such as Dame Clara Butt. Other evocative items on show were a set of Melba’s personal leather-bound musical scores of her roles, many annotated in her own hand, and two original musical cadenzas written especially for Melba in 1898 by Joachim, the most famous European violinist of his day.

The great success of the evening was testimony to the quality of the performance and the place that Melba occupies in Australian cultural heritage. For this reason the new Melba Conservatorium acquisition is more than just a musical story. As the National Library’s Curator of Music, Robyn Holmes, says, ‘it depicts not only the musical world of Melba, the international star, but sheds light on Melba’s wider contribution to the development of Australian cultural life.’

Claire Cruickshank
Administrator, Music and Dance Branch