Publicity portrait of Dame Nellie Melba

This is Australia’s first international diva, operatic soprano Dame Nellie Melba (1861–1931). Born Helen ‘Nellie’ Porter Mitchell in Melbourne, and known as the Queen of Song, she made her debut in Brussels in 1886 and went on to rule all major opera houses in Europe and the USA for an extraordinary 40 years. Despite her international renown, she still periodically called Australia home. This sepia postcard features a head and shoulders publicity portrait of Nellie Melba as Marguerite in Faust. The bottom-right corner of the image reads 'Reutlinger Paris SIP', a reference to photographer Léopold-Émile Reutlinger and the Société Industrielle de Photographie.

In 1922, aware that the high price of opera tickets was a barrier for many, Melba performed to 70,000 people at an extraordinary run of Concerts for the People in Melbourne and Sydney. At the end of the final show in Sydney on 28 April, she told the audience, ‘I have never enjoyed singing as much in my whole career as I have at these Concerts for the People’.