MELBA AS ‘MARGUERITE’ IN ‘FAUST’ MELBA (Dame Nellie, 1861-1931, Australian Soprano)

Fine vintage postcard photo by Spencer Shier, Melbourne, signed and inscribed showing her half length, in profile, in costume as \Marguerite’ in ‘Faust’ wearing a long sleeved dress with wide lapels and a long pleated skirt, she is standing, holding a prayer book or bible in her hands, with a rosary hanging from her right wrist and a chatelaine is hanging from her waist, 5½” x 3½”, no place but the photographer’s studio is in Melbourne,

Melba was not known as a Wagner singer, although she occasionally sang Elsa in Lohengrin and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. She received a certain amount of praise in these roles, although Klein found her unsuited to them, and Bernard Shaw thought she sang with great skill but played artificially and without sensibility. In 1896 at the Metropolitan, she attempted the role of Brünnhilde in Siegfried, in which she was not a success. Her most frequent role in that house was Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, which she had studied under the supervision of the composer.

Item Date:  1924

Stock No:  42342      £275

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