January 11, 2016 • 21 mins
Born Helen Porter Mitchell in Melbourne, Australia in 1861, Nellie Melba would rise to fame as a singer. Her life was everything you'd expect from a diva: foods named for her, command performances and a scandalous royal affair.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly cry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Uh. It
is another opera podcast, but this one is really about
the biography of a famous singer. Specifically, we won't get
(00:22):
too deep into opera terminology or anything on this one. Uh.
And this was suggested on Twitter and I, as often
happens to us when someone suggests something on social if
we don't write down right then who suggested it, it
gets lost to the ages because it becomes very impossible
to search. So I apologize to the person that suggested her.
I do not remember your name. But it made me
excited because not only did it involve research of a
(00:44):
diva in the traditional sense of the word diva, like
a premier opera talent, I also get to research a
French chef, though his part of the story is fairly brief,
but that made it exciting to me. So we're talking
today about Dame Nellie Melba and this is actually gonna
be a two parter because she's one of those people
of it like, once you really dig into her biography,
she did so many things and her career was so
(01:05):
long and she's just really fascinating. She was basically the
equivalent of a modern day megastar in her time. She
was confident, she was smart, she was talented. She was
beloved by the people of her home country Australia, but
she was also an international star. She was a featured
performer on stages throughout the world. She was basically a
worldwide phenomenon in terms of singing, and she was sometimes
(01:28):
criticized during her career as coming across as cold as
a singer rather than being passionate, but many others considered
her voice to be one of ultimate purity and clarity.
She really focused a lot on technique, but regardless of
where anybody stood on it. For four decades, she really
commanded the opera scene and she drew crowds in a
(01:48):
career that was nothing short of globe trotting. So that's
who we're talking about today. Nellie was born Helen Porter
Mitchell on sixty one near Melbourne, Australia. Her father, David Mitchell,
was a building contractor and an entrepreneur of some renown,
and he supported Australia's eight hour workday movement in the
mid eighteen fifties, David and his wife Isabella and doubt
(02:11):
Mitchell had ten children all told, that's a lot of kids, uh,
and their household was full of music. The Mitchell's loved it.
David sang in the choir at the Scotts Church. He
also played violin, though just casually at home. He wasn't
like a concert violinist, and Isabella played several instruments, and
she made it a priority to teach all of their
(02:32):
children music. That means that Nellie did start singing at
a very young age. She appeared at the Richmond Public
Hall when she was just six, and she eventually learned
to play the piano with great skill. But she was
a little bit of its comboy, and she wasn't considered
a musical wunderkin by any means. Her humming, of all things,
was recognized as being quite lovely, and she would hum
(02:55):
throughout her life, eventually as a vocal exercise rather than
a way to make her own music. And in addition
to the music that her mother taught her, Nellie also
got a more general academic education. She was taught additional
subjects by her aunt's and then she also attended Boarding
School and later Presbyterian Ladies College, and it was in
college that Nellie truly blossomed and began more seriously studying
(03:19):
and excelling in music, elocution, and painting. Nellie finished school
in eighteen eighty, although sadly it was not a time
of celebration. Her mother and one of her sisters had
both died. Charles moved the family to Mackay in Queensland,
where he had purchased a sugar mill, thinking that a
new environment might really help everybody deal with their grief.
(03:42):
On December twenty two of eighteen eighty two, so at
the age of twenty one, Nellie married Charles Nesbit Armstrong,
and she had met him the previous year after the
family had moved. He was both rugged and a gentleman,
and he was three years older than Nellie. But married
life and McKay was really difficult for Nelly to settle into.
The couple had a son, George, in October of eighteen
(04:05):
eighty three, but this didn't fix anything. She didn't feel
any real happiness. She certainly cared for her son, but
she didn't feel fulfilled and it didn't make their marriage
very happy. Charles is also alleged to have been violent
with Nellie, and just a few months after George was born,
Nellie left. On January nineteenth of eighteen eighty four, after
(04:26):
separating from Charles, Nelly moved to Melbourne to make a
fresh start and pursue a career in singing. The marriage
didn't end there, though, Charles Is and Nellie's lives would
stay connected for some time and we'll just be coming
back to that in a little bit. So in Melbourne,
she took vocal lessons from Pietro Chicky and accomplished opera
singer in his own right, and Checkie also had a
(04:48):
fascinating life in his own right. He was born in
Rome and he first worked as an architect under Pope
Pious the ninth, and then he left his architecture career
during the nineteen forty Italian revolutionary un rest, and that's
when he turned to opera. He would appear on stages
all over the world during his career, including on the
stage of the previous podcast topic, Lascala. The relationship between
(05:11):
Nellie and Checkie would grow contentious over the years, but
at the beginning he really thought she was destined to
be a star and that her voice would captivate audiences everywhere.
With guidance from a teacher with that kind of faith
in her talent, Nellie focused exclusively on developing her skills,
and that dedication really paid off when she made her
(05:31):
Australian singing debut at the Melbourne Town Hall on May seventeenth,
eight four. Audiences fell in love with her and critics
raved over her, just as Checkie had expected. This really
launched Nellie's career as a performer, and she did extremely
well for herself financially right out of the gate. We're
going to talk more about the trajectory of Nellie's early
(05:52):
career in just a moment, but first we're going to
pause for a word from one of our sponsors. So
just shy of two years after Nellie made her Melbourne debut,
she felt ready to expand her audience, and so in
early six her father, David Mitchell, was sent as a
commissioner to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London, and
(06:13):
Nelly took advantage of this trip's timing to accompany him
and feel out her European performing options. She loved London instantly,
but it didn't exactly love her back she gave one
small performance and it wasn't a terrible outing, but nobody
was writing ray reviews about it. There was no standing
up and cheering by any means. She met with composers
(06:35):
their Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, but he
wasn't really woud with her either. He told her to
just keep practicing and that if she did so and
improved enough, he might give her a small role in
an upcoming production. So you might think that that would
be a terrible downer to kind of get told after
you have been told your great so many times, you're okay.
(06:57):
But this lukewarm experience in London, in fact, did not
deter Nellie at all. She had additional plans. Through the
wife of the Austro Hungarian consul to Melbourne, Nellie had
arranged a meeting in Paris with German singer and teacher
Matilda Marksey and Nellie sang from mar case This audience
of one was far more impressed than the people of
(07:17):
London had been. Mar Casey felt that Checky had managed
to give Nellie's voice strength and endurance, but he hadn't
really given her the tools to develop it. Beyond that,
so part of the education that Nellie received under Marks
had nothing to do with music and everything to do
with cultivating a persona and her social connections. The younger
(07:37):
woman was booked to sing in salons and private events
so that she could work on her social graces and
meet composers and other people who were connected to Europe's
music scene, and Marks eventually took on a very motherly
role in Nellie's life, and in fact, Nellie often referred
to her as mother in their correspondence, and the mentor
also encouraged her student to take a stage name, because
(08:00):
all of this time Nellie had been appearing as Nellie Armstrong.
Nellie's husband, Charles Armstrong, had actually traveled with her to Europe,
but their marriage was never really stable. Just the same
Charles resisted the idea of getting a divorce, he joined
the military, George stayed with Nellie, and Charles would visit
his wife and his son from time to time. It
(08:22):
kind of reminds me of have you ever known a
couple where someone takes a job far away to try
to keep the marriage together, because that way they're not
greeting against each other all the time. It's it seems
like that's what was in play here. I actually know
some people who have taken jobs far away purporting that
that was just how it worked out, and I've always
had the seed of wondering if that was what was
really going on. I have known people that work in
(08:45):
live in separate places just because of logistics, but I
definitely have known a few where they're like, we love
each other, but when we're together, we make each other crazy.
So if we can limit that and to only have
good times together, it works out. So I think that
may have been part of the the impetus for George
for Charles to join the military. On October seven, Nellie
(09:05):
made her debut as an opera singer in Brussels. Now
we've mentioned before that she had made singing debuts, but
this is really the first time that she was focusing
on opera uh and in this she started Verdi's Rigoletto
as Guilda, the daughter of the title character, And this
appearance at the Royal Money marked the first time she
appeared under what would become her known stage name of
(09:27):
Nellie Melba. And if you're wondering where Melba came from
as a name, it was in honor of her home
city Melbourne. The night of that debut, Charles and Nellie
had a huge fight and finally after just dragging things out,
this ended their tumultuous five year marriage in terms of
their relationship with each other, but they were still legally
married for several more years after that. Rigoletto, and specifically
(09:51):
Nellie in it, was such a success that she soon
had other high profile roles, including parts in La Traviata
and Luca de lama more, although Gustav Muller remarked after
her Traviata performance that he would rather listen to a clarinet.
Seven months after her operatic debut, she returned to London
to perform Lucia at Covent Garden, but though she was
(10:13):
celebrated elsewhere, London still had not warm to Nellie, even
under a new name. She made a respectable showing, but
she just couldn't seem to break into the London opera
scene as a star, and she was only offered smaller
parts than she had been playing elsewhere. Melbae had no
interest in stepping down to supporting roles after having been
the featured performer, so she said goodbye to London and
(10:36):
headed back to Brussels. She soon appeared as Ophelia in Hamlet,
which opened in Paris on May eighteen eighty nine. She
once again got rave reviews, but during this time things
were in motion to try to bring her back to
London once more. Yeah, So, while London audiences had not
really raved over Nelly Melba as a whole, she did
(10:56):
gain some admirers in her appearances there, and one of
these was Gladys de Gray, wife of Earl de Gray
Frederick Robinson, and Lady de Gray was a patron of
the arts. She was also close friends with Oscar Wilde,
and after Nellie left London for the second time, Lady
de Gray wrote to the singer and she really asked
her and pled with her to please return to England
(11:18):
to sing once again. Nellie was moved by the Gray's
letter and she did agree to appear again in the
London stage, but she was also committed to her Ophelia
role already at this point, so her return to Covent
Garden had to wait until she had wrapped up her
Paris production. So when she did wrap that up and
finally sing again at Comment Garden, it was on June fifteenth,
(11:41):
eighteen eighty nine and Nelly appeared in Romeo and Juliet
in the starring role. So following the idiom of the
Third Times the Charm, this appearance in London was what
Nellie Melba would later refer to as quote the great
night that marked the start of her success with English audiences.
It was also the beginning of a long relationship with
(12:01):
Covent Garden. While there had been reluctance to book her
there initially, she eventually was one of the very few
performers to have a permanent private dressing room at the
theater for decades. Nellie was so happy in London from
that point on that she purchased a home in Great
Cumberland Place and then had it remodeled to look like Versailles.
(12:22):
She lived there for more than two decades. Uh So,
we are about to get to the food part and
talk about the chef that I referenced at the top
of the episode. But before we do, let's have a
brief word from one of our sponsors. Now, on to
the part I wondered about as soon as Holly gave
me this outline, which is the food part. Early on
in her time in London, Nellie Melda made the acquaintance
(12:43):
of August Escoffier, who would come to be known as
the King of chefs. When you think of franchio cuisine,
you've probably got a good sense of the food aesthetic
that he really made famous. He would concoct these these
really lavish eleven course meals, and his kitchen always had
to have a skilled saucier in residence. He favored really
(13:03):
seasonal ingredients, and his work in streamlining professional kitchens became
the industry standard of organization. He ran several restaurants in
London during the eight nineties and nineteen hundreds, and Nellie
loved those restaurants. She dined in Escoffier's establishments with regularity, and,
according to legend, at one point she sent the chef
(13:24):
tickets to one of her performances, which was a staging
of Wagner's Lohend Green, and in this particular production, one
of the set pieces was a large, beautiful swan shaped boat.
So moved was Escoffier by the performance that when Nelly
appeared in his restaurant the next day, he created a
customed dish for her. It featured fresh peaches over ice
(13:46):
cream with an ice carving of a swan, and it
was served in a silver dish. He called his creation
pes shoe Signa, which is peaches with swats. The dish evolved, though,
and by the time Escoffier featured it on the menu
at the London Carlton, he added a raspberry puree and
changed the name to pesh melba yes, or peach melba,
(14:07):
as we often call it in the United States. But
that is not the only food item that a scoffier
named for the diva. The story goes that in seven
while Nellie Melba was dining in one of US Scoffee's restaurants,
she told the chef that the bread that she had
been served was much too thick, allegedly because she was
trying to maintain her figure, and there had always been
(14:29):
this sort of issue surrounding her in terms of the
public eye, that she was a little too heavy to
play some of the entourneing roles that she was in,
so she was probably very conscious of her figure. But
to solve this problem and appease the singer, while still
keeping bread in the meal, of Scoffier is said to
have gone to the kitchen and cut the thinnest possible
(14:50):
slice of bread he could before he then toasted it.
And allegedly this is how Melba Toast was born. And
that was the question I wondered when you gave me
that line. We mentioned Nellie's private dressing room at Covent
Garden a little bit ago, And while that may sound
like quite a perk, it was the least of the
benefits and power that she enjoyed during her time there.
(15:11):
She had the good fortune to be there at the
same time that the theater was flourishing. It had these
enormous productions and huge casts that drew enormous crowds, and
Nellie was celebrated, and she rubbed elbows with high society.
She used her social power to shut down any rivals
that dared to challenge her status. Uh. And in my head,
(15:32):
as I was working on this and reading about ways
she would deal with rivals, and we'll talk about another
one of them later, I couldn't help but think of
the movie show Girls, which is a wondrous and bad thing.
But so Nellie and Lady de Gray were great friends,
and de Gray opened a lot of society doors for
the singer. So Nellie sang in command performances before royalty
(15:53):
throughout the world, and she achieved the level of fame
that ensured that she was basically mobbed wherever she trampled,
like I'm not kidding when I say international superstar. On
the personal front, Nellie had met Philippe, Duke of Orlean
in eight nine. He was the heir of the Bourbon
claimant to the throne of France, and the pair became
what would become a scandalous and damaging relationship because the
(16:14):
two of them were not at all careful about being
seen together in public. There were reports of the two
of them being spotted as a couple from London, Paris, Brussels, St.
Petersburg and more. They were downright brazen about their their
affair and it became news. Keep in mind that Nellie
was still married to Charles at this point, although they
really didn't have any real contact with one another. But
(16:36):
once her romance with the Duke of Arleon became public knowledge,
in part because he was clearly following her on her
performance tours, Charles finally filed for divorce, and at this
point he used this news item to accuse Nellie of adultery.
There was also legal action against Philip in the mix.
So this legal claim, though sputtered out for reasons which
(16:57):
have never been made entirely clear, there has been a
lot of acculation by various historians that Charles was pressured
to drop his suit due to the high profile nature
of Nellie's paramore like he may have been getting some
pressure from people connected to the French royal lineage. And
as for Philip, he had been engaged to Princess Marguerite
of or Leon, which is his cousin, but that engagement
(17:20):
was called off. I made all this scandal as the
legal issues are being done away with in whatever mysterious
way that would happen. It left the Duke to travel
the world, but he and Nellie never really rekindled their romance.
And that's actually where we're gonna cliff hang this one,
because it is sort of a pause moment in her life. Uh,
And the next time around we were going to talk
(17:41):
more about her career and kind of the latter half
of it and and how she developed and stayed very
modern and current and much beloved. But that's part one
of Dame Nellie Melba. She hasn't been made dame yet
at this point. In the story, but she will be
that's a little bit of a spoiler. But Scotman, do
you also have some listener mail for us? I do.
(18:04):
People may have noticed, and I've mentioned before that I
am trying to go through some of our our physical
mail because we get so much of it. Uh, and
I really appreciate that people make the effort to send
something through the mail. So I have three postcards from
various listeners. One is from our listeners Sarah. She says,
hello from St. Petersburg. I realized now that I probably
should have bought a larger card. I'm currently interning at
(18:26):
the U. S. Consulate here listening to YouTube during my
lunch breaks. I've been listening for the past year or so.
I just want to say that I love the podcast.
It's really no wonder listeners send you postcards from around
the world. Sorry my for my tiny handwriting. Hopefully you
can read it. Uh, yeah, we absolutely could. And it's
a lovely black and white photograph from St. Petersburg. It's
so gorgeous, So thank you so much Sarah for sending that.
(18:48):
And the next to are both from military connected people.
The first is from Emily, who is a wife of
a U S. Navy service member stationed in Italy. She's
a longtime listener to the show. She recently visited Bavaria
and toured Schlaus Schwanstein, which is absolutely gorgeous and was
talked about in an episode before Tracy and I came
(19:09):
on the show. But I'm a big fan of Mad
King Ludzig. So thank you, Emily, and thank you also
for your part in helping to keep our troops happy.
I know being stationed overseas can sometimes be really draining,
but I'm hoping you're enjoying it. The next one is
also UH from Military Gent. It is from our listener Steve,
(19:30):
who is on board the U S. S Harry S.
Truman UH, and he says he loves the show and
he has been touring about He just left Split and
learned so much history, especially the nearby towns of Seline.
And I think it's trur gear. I'm so sorry. I'm
probably butchering that he said he bought a cravat and
toured the Diocletian Palace. Thanks for podcasting so I can
(19:52):
listen underway. Thank you for your service. We super appreciate it,
and I'm so glad that you shared this with us.
It's again a gorgeous postcard. I love postcard so much,
and it's just cool to me to know that our
listeners are out there actually kind of living some fun
history adventures of their own, So thank you to the
three of them for sharing those with us. If you
would like to email us, you can do so at
(20:12):
History Podcast at house to Works dot com. We're also
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curious to learn a little bit more about sort of
(20:33):
topics related to what we talked about today, you can
go to our parents site, House to Works. Type in
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a good sense of that. Uh. If you would like
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(20:57):
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for more on this and thousands of other topics because
it how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly cry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Uh. It
is another opera podcast, but this one is really about
the biography of a famous singer. Specifically, we won't get
(00:22):
too deep into opera terminology or anything on this one. Uh.
And this was suggested on Twitter and I, as often
happens to us when someone suggests something on social if
we don't write down right then who suggested it, it
gets lost to the ages because it becomes very impossible
to search. So I apologize to the person that suggested her.
I do not remember your name. But it made me
excited because not only did it involve research of a
(00:44):
diva in the traditional sense of the word diva, like
a premier opera talent, I also get to research a
French chef, though his part of the story is fairly brief,
but that made it exciting to me. So we're talking
today about Dame Nellie Melba and this is actually gonna
be a two parter because she's one of those people
of it like, once you really dig into her biography,
she did so many things and her career was so
(01:05):
long and she's just really fascinating. She was basically the
equivalent of a modern day megastar in her time. She
was confident, she was smart, she was talented. She was
beloved by the people of her home country Australia, but
she was also an international star. She was a featured
performer on stages throughout the world. She was basically a
worldwide phenomenon in terms of singing, and she was sometimes
(01:28):
criticized during her career as coming across as cold as
a singer rather than being passionate, but many others considered
her voice to be one of ultimate purity and clarity.
She really focused a lot on technique, but regardless of
where anybody stood on it. For four decades, she really
commanded the opera scene and she drew crowds in a
(01:48):
career that was nothing short of globe trotting. So that's
who we're talking about today. Nellie was born Helen Porter
Mitchell on sixty one near Melbourne, Australia. Her father, David Mitchell,
was a building contractor and an entrepreneur of some renown,
and he supported Australia's eight hour workday movement in the
mid eighteen fifties, David and his wife Isabella and doubt
(02:11):
Mitchell had ten children all told, that's a lot of kids, uh,
and their household was full of music. The Mitchell's loved it.
David sang in the choir at the Scotts Church. He
also played violin, though just casually at home. He wasn't
like a concert violinist, and Isabella played several instruments, and
she made it a priority to teach all of their
(02:32):
children music. That means that Nellie did start singing at
a very young age. She appeared at the Richmond Public
Hall when she was just six, and she eventually learned
to play the piano with great skill. But she was
a little bit of its comboy, and she wasn't considered
a musical wunderkin by any means. Her humming, of all things,
was recognized as being quite lovely, and she would hum
(02:55):
throughout her life, eventually as a vocal exercise rather than
a way to make her own music. And in addition
to the music that her mother taught her, Nellie also
got a more general academic education. She was taught additional
subjects by her aunt's and then she also attended Boarding
School and later Presbyterian Ladies College, and it was in
college that Nellie truly blossomed and began more seriously studying
(03:19):
and excelling in music, elocution, and painting. Nellie finished school
in eighteen eighty, although sadly it was not a time
of celebration. Her mother and one of her sisters had
both died. Charles moved the family to Mackay in Queensland,
where he had purchased a sugar mill, thinking that a
new environment might really help everybody deal with their grief.
(03:42):
On December twenty two of eighteen eighty two, so at
the age of twenty one, Nellie married Charles Nesbit Armstrong,
and she had met him the previous year after the
family had moved. He was both rugged and a gentleman,
and he was three years older than Nellie. But married
life and McKay was really difficult for Nelly to settle into.
The couple had a son, George, in October of eighteen
(04:05):
eighty three, but this didn't fix anything. She didn't feel
any real happiness. She certainly cared for her son, but
she didn't feel fulfilled and it didn't make their marriage
very happy. Charles is also alleged to have been violent
with Nellie, and just a few months after George was born,
Nellie left. On January nineteenth of eighteen eighty four, after
(04:26):
separating from Charles, Nelly moved to Melbourne to make a
fresh start and pursue a career in singing. The marriage
didn't end there, though, Charles Is and Nellie's lives would
stay connected for some time and we'll just be coming
back to that in a little bit. So in Melbourne,
she took vocal lessons from Pietro Chicky and accomplished opera
singer in his own right, and Checkie also had a
(04:48):
fascinating life in his own right. He was born in
Rome and he first worked as an architect under Pope
Pious the ninth, and then he left his architecture career
during the nineteen forty Italian revolutionary un rest, and that's
when he turned to opera. He would appear on stages
all over the world during his career, including on the
stage of the previous podcast topic, Lascala. The relationship between
(05:11):
Nellie and Checkie would grow contentious over the years, but
at the beginning he really thought she was destined to
be a star and that her voice would captivate audiences everywhere.
With guidance from a teacher with that kind of faith
in her talent, Nellie focused exclusively on developing her skills,
and that dedication really paid off when she made her
(05:31):
Australian singing debut at the Melbourne Town Hall on May seventeenth,
eight four. Audiences fell in love with her and critics
raved over her, just as Checkie had expected. This really
launched Nellie's career as a performer, and she did extremely
well for herself financially right out of the gate. We're
going to talk more about the trajectory of Nellie's early
(05:52):
career in just a moment, but first we're going to
pause for a word from one of our sponsors. So
just shy of two years after Nellie made her Melbourne debut,
she felt ready to expand her audience, and so in
early six her father, David Mitchell, was sent as a
commissioner to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London, and
(06:13):
Nelly took advantage of this trip's timing to accompany him
and feel out her European performing options. She loved London instantly,
but it didn't exactly love her back she gave one
small performance and it wasn't a terrible outing, but nobody
was writing ray reviews about it. There was no standing
up and cheering by any means. She met with composers
(06:35):
their Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, but he
wasn't really woud with her either. He told her to
just keep practicing and that if she did so and
improved enough, he might give her a small role in
an upcoming production. So you might think that that would
be a terrible downer to kind of get told after
you have been told your great so many times, you're okay.
(06:57):
But this lukewarm experience in London, in fact, did not
deter Nellie at all. She had additional plans. Through the
wife of the Austro Hungarian consul to Melbourne, Nellie had
arranged a meeting in Paris with German singer and teacher
Matilda Marksey and Nellie sang from mar case This audience
of one was far more impressed than the people of
(07:17):
London had been. Mar Casey felt that Checky had managed
to give Nellie's voice strength and endurance, but he hadn't
really given her the tools to develop it. Beyond that,
so part of the education that Nellie received under Marks
had nothing to do with music and everything to do
with cultivating a persona and her social connections. The younger
(07:37):
woman was booked to sing in salons and private events
so that she could work on her social graces and
meet composers and other people who were connected to Europe's
music scene, and Marks eventually took on a very motherly
role in Nellie's life, and in fact, Nellie often referred
to her as mother in their correspondence, and the mentor
also encouraged her student to take a stage name, because
(08:00):
all of this time Nellie had been appearing as Nellie Armstrong.
Nellie's husband, Charles Armstrong, had actually traveled with her to Europe,
but their marriage was never really stable. Just the same
Charles resisted the idea of getting a divorce, he joined
the military, George stayed with Nellie, and Charles would visit
his wife and his son from time to time. It
(08:22):
kind of reminds me of have you ever known a
couple where someone takes a job far away to try
to keep the marriage together, because that way they're not
greeting against each other all the time. It's it seems
like that's what was in play here. I actually know
some people who have taken jobs far away purporting that
that was just how it worked out, and I've always
had the seed of wondering if that was what was
really going on. I have known people that work in
(08:45):
live in separate places just because of logistics, but I
definitely have known a few where they're like, we love
each other, but when we're together, we make each other crazy.
So if we can limit that and to only have
good times together, it works out. So I think that
may have been part of the the impetus for George
for Charles to join the military. On October seven, Nellie
(09:05):
made her debut as an opera singer in Brussels. Now
we've mentioned before that she had made singing debuts, but
this is really the first time that she was focusing
on opera uh and in this she started Verdi's Rigoletto
as Guilda, the daughter of the title character, And this
appearance at the Royal Money marked the first time she
appeared under what would become her known stage name of
(09:27):
Nellie Melba. And if you're wondering where Melba came from
as a name, it was in honor of her home
city Melbourne. The night of that debut, Charles and Nellie
had a huge fight and finally after just dragging things out,
this ended their tumultuous five year marriage in terms of
their relationship with each other, but they were still legally
married for several more years after that. Rigoletto, and specifically
(09:51):
Nellie in it, was such a success that she soon
had other high profile roles, including parts in La Traviata
and Luca de lama more, although Gustav Muller remarked after
her Traviata performance that he would rather listen to a clarinet.
Seven months after her operatic debut, she returned to London
to perform Lucia at Covent Garden, but though she was
(10:13):
celebrated elsewhere, London still had not warm to Nellie, even
under a new name. She made a respectable showing, but
she just couldn't seem to break into the London opera
scene as a star, and she was only offered smaller
parts than she had been playing elsewhere. Melbae had no
interest in stepping down to supporting roles after having been
the featured performer, so she said goodbye to London and
(10:36):
headed back to Brussels. She soon appeared as Ophelia in Hamlet,
which opened in Paris on May eighteen eighty nine. She
once again got rave reviews, but during this time things
were in motion to try to bring her back to
London once more. Yeah, So, while London audiences had not
really raved over Nelly Melba as a whole, she did
(10:56):
gain some admirers in her appearances there, and one of
these was Gladys de Gray, wife of Earl de Gray
Frederick Robinson, and Lady de Gray was a patron of
the arts. She was also close friends with Oscar Wilde,
and after Nellie left London for the second time, Lady
de Gray wrote to the singer and she really asked
her and pled with her to please return to England
(11:18):
to sing once again. Nellie was moved by the Gray's
letter and she did agree to appear again in the
London stage, but she was also committed to her Ophelia
role already at this point, so her return to Covent
Garden had to wait until she had wrapped up her
Paris production. So when she did wrap that up and
finally sing again at Comment Garden, it was on June fifteenth,
(11:41):
eighteen eighty nine and Nelly appeared in Romeo and Juliet
in the starring role. So following the idiom of the
Third Times the Charm, this appearance in London was what
Nellie Melba would later refer to as quote the great
night that marked the start of her success with English audiences.
It was also the beginning of a long relationship with
(12:01):
Covent Garden. While there had been reluctance to book her
there initially, she eventually was one of the very few
performers to have a permanent private dressing room at the
theater for decades. Nellie was so happy in London from
that point on that she purchased a home in Great
Cumberland Place and then had it remodeled to look like Versailles.
(12:22):
She lived there for more than two decades. Uh So,
we are about to get to the food part and
talk about the chef that I referenced at the top
of the episode. But before we do, let's have a
brief word from one of our sponsors. Now, on to
the part I wondered about as soon as Holly gave
me this outline, which is the food part. Early on
in her time in London, Nellie Melda made the acquaintance
(12:43):
of August Escoffier, who would come to be known as
the King of chefs. When you think of franchio cuisine,
you've probably got a good sense of the food aesthetic
that he really made famous. He would concoct these these
really lavish eleven course meals, and his kitchen always had
to have a skilled saucier in residence. He favored really
(13:03):
seasonal ingredients, and his work in streamlining professional kitchens became
the industry standard of organization. He ran several restaurants in
London during the eight nineties and nineteen hundreds, and Nellie
loved those restaurants. She dined in Escoffier's establishments with regularity, and,
according to legend, at one point she sent the chef
(13:24):
tickets to one of her performances, which was a staging
of Wagner's Lohend Green, and in this particular production, one
of the set pieces was a large, beautiful swan shaped boat.
So moved was Escoffier by the performance that when Nelly
appeared in his restaurant the next day, he created a
customed dish for her. It featured fresh peaches over ice
(13:46):
cream with an ice carving of a swan, and it
was served in a silver dish. He called his creation
pes shoe Signa, which is peaches with swats. The dish evolved, though,
and by the time Escoffier featured it on the menu
at the London Carlton, he added a raspberry puree and
changed the name to pesh melba yes, or peach melba,
(14:07):
as we often call it in the United States. But
that is not the only food item that a scoffier
named for the diva. The story goes that in seven
while Nellie Melba was dining in one of US Scoffee's restaurants,
she told the chef that the bread that she had
been served was much too thick, allegedly because she was
trying to maintain her figure, and there had always been
(14:29):
this sort of issue surrounding her in terms of the
public eye, that she was a little too heavy to
play some of the entourneing roles that she was in,
so she was probably very conscious of her figure. But
to solve this problem and appease the singer, while still
keeping bread in the meal, of Scoffier is said to
have gone to the kitchen and cut the thinnest possible
(14:50):
slice of bread he could before he then toasted it.
And allegedly this is how Melba Toast was born. And
that was the question I wondered when you gave me
that line. We mentioned Nellie's private dressing room at Covent
Garden a little bit ago, And while that may sound
like quite a perk, it was the least of the
benefits and power that she enjoyed during her time there.
(15:11):
She had the good fortune to be there at the
same time that the theater was flourishing. It had these
enormous productions and huge casts that drew enormous crowds, and
Nellie was celebrated, and she rubbed elbows with high society.
She used her social power to shut down any rivals
that dared to challenge her status. Uh. And in my head,
(15:32):
as I was working on this and reading about ways
she would deal with rivals, and we'll talk about another
one of them later, I couldn't help but think of
the movie show Girls, which is a wondrous and bad thing.
But so Nellie and Lady de Gray were great friends,
and de Gray opened a lot of society doors for
the singer. So Nellie sang in command performances before royalty
(15:53):
throughout the world, and she achieved the level of fame
that ensured that she was basically mobbed wherever she trampled,
like I'm not kidding when I say international superstar. On
the personal front, Nellie had met Philippe, Duke of Orlean
in eight nine. He was the heir of the Bourbon
claimant to the throne of France, and the pair became
what would become a scandalous and damaging relationship because the
(16:14):
two of them were not at all careful about being
seen together in public. There were reports of the two
of them being spotted as a couple from London, Paris, Brussels, St.
Petersburg and more. They were downright brazen about their their
affair and it became news. Keep in mind that Nellie
was still married to Charles at this point, although they
really didn't have any real contact with one another. But
(16:36):
once her romance with the Duke of Arleon became public knowledge,
in part because he was clearly following her on her
performance tours, Charles finally filed for divorce, and at this
point he used this news item to accuse Nellie of adultery.
There was also legal action against Philip in the mix.
So this legal claim, though sputtered out for reasons which
(16:57):
have never been made entirely clear, there has been a
lot of acculation by various historians that Charles was pressured
to drop his suit due to the high profile nature
of Nellie's paramore like he may have been getting some
pressure from people connected to the French royal lineage. And
as for Philip, he had been engaged to Princess Marguerite
of or Leon, which is his cousin, but that engagement
(17:20):
was called off. I made all this scandal as the
legal issues are being done away with in whatever mysterious
way that would happen. It left the Duke to travel
the world, but he and Nellie never really rekindled their romance.
And that's actually where we're gonna cliff hang this one,
because it is sort of a pause moment in her life. Uh,
And the next time around we were going to talk
(17:41):
more about her career and kind of the latter half
of it and and how she developed and stayed very
modern and current and much beloved. But that's part one
of Dame Nellie Melba. She hasn't been made dame yet
at this point. In the story, but she will be
that's a little bit of a spoiler. But Scotman, do
you also have some listener mail for us? I do.
(18:04):
People may have noticed, and I've mentioned before that I
am trying to go through some of our our physical
mail because we get so much of it. Uh, and
I really appreciate that people make the effort to send
something through the mail. So I have three postcards from
various listeners. One is from our listeners Sarah. She says,
hello from St. Petersburg. I realized now that I probably
should have bought a larger card. I'm currently interning at
(18:26):
the U. S. Consulate here listening to YouTube during my
lunch breaks. I've been listening for the past year or so.
I just want to say that I love the podcast.
It's really no wonder listeners send you postcards from around
the world. Sorry my for my tiny handwriting. Hopefully you
can read it. Uh, yeah, we absolutely could. And it's
a lovely black and white photograph from St. Petersburg. It's
so gorgeous, So thank you so much Sarah for sending that.
(18:48):
And the next to are both from military connected people.
The first is from Emily, who is a wife of
a U S. Navy service member stationed in Italy. She's
a longtime listener to the show. She recently visited Bavaria
and toured Schlaus Schwanstein, which is absolutely gorgeous and was
talked about in an episode before Tracy and I came
(19:09):
on the show. But I'm a big fan of Mad
King Ludzig. So thank you, Emily, and thank you also
for your part in helping to keep our troops happy.
I know being stationed overseas can sometimes be really draining,
but I'm hoping you're enjoying it. The next one is
also UH from Military Gent. It is from our listener Steve,
(19:30):
who is on board the U S. S Harry S.
Truman UH, and he says he loves the show and
he has been touring about He just left Split and
learned so much history, especially the nearby towns of Seline.
And I think it's trur gear. I'm so sorry. I'm
probably butchering that he said he bought a cravat and
toured the Diocletian Palace. Thanks for podcasting so I can
(19:52):
listen underway. Thank you for your service. We super appreciate it,
and I'm so glad that you shared this with us.
It's again a gorgeous postcard. I love postcard so much,
and it's just cool to me to know that our
listeners are out there actually kind of living some fun
history adventures of their own, So thank you to the
three of them for sharing those with us. If you
would like to email us, you can do so at
(20:12):
History Podcast at house to Works dot com. We're also
on Facebook dot com slash missed in history, and on
Twitter at misst in history, at Pinterest at pinterest dot com,
slash mist in history at misston history dot tumbler dot com,
and on Instagram at misst in history. If you are
curious to learn a little bit more about sort of
(20:33):
topics related to what we talked about today, you can
go to our parents site, House to Works. Type in
the word opera. One of the articles that will come
up is how the Metropolitan Opera works, so you'll get
a good sense of that. Uh. If you would like
to visit us online, you can do so at missed
in history dot com, where all of our show notes
are for any of the episodes that have included Tracy
and myself as hosts. Or we also have an archive
(20:57):
of all of the episodes from the beginning with previous host,
but there aren't show notes for all of those, just
for the ones in the Tracy and Holly era, so
we encourage you to come and visit us at miss
in history dot com and House gop Works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics because
it how stuff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Tracy V. Wilson
Holly Frey
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