Melba’s Farewell

Amazing that Nellie Melba was 65 when she said farewell to Covent Garden with such a youthful sounding Mimì. Forget the surface noise – Melba’s technique triumphs throughout. — BBC Music Magazine, February 2018, 3 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 18th Aug 2017
Catalogue No: ELQ4828093
Label: Eloquence
Length: 77 minutes

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Verdi: Otello / Act 4

Work length10:31

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Jane Bourguignan (mezzo-soprano)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Vincenzo Bellezza
Recorded: 2017

Piangea cantando "Willow Song"

Track length6:42

Ave Maria, piena di grazia "Desdemona’s Prayer"

Track length3:49

Puccini: La Bohème: Act 3

Work length11:21

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), John Brownlee (baritone), Browning Mummery (tenor), Aurora Rettore (soprano)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Vincenzo Bellezza
Recorded: 2017

Entrate … C’è Rodolfo

Track length3:45

Donde lieta uscì "Mimì’s Farewell"

Track length3:06

Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina (Quartet)

Track length4:30

Puccini: La Bohème / Act 4

Work length12:37

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Aurora Rettore (soprano), Browning Mummery (tenor), John Brownlee (bass-baritone), Browning Mummery (bass-baritone), Frederick Collier (bass-baritone), Édouard Cotreuil (bass (vocal))
Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Vincenzo Bellezza
Recorded: 2017

Gavotta... Minuetto

Track length3:39

Sono andati?

Track length4:42

Io, Musetta … Oh, come è bello e morbido! "Death of Mimì"

Track length4:16

Address By Lord Stanley Of Alderley

Work length3:22

Lord Arthur Lyulph Stanley (speaker)
Recorded: 2017

Dame Nellie Melba’s Farewell Speech

Work length2:37

Dame Nellie Melba (speaker)
Recorded: 2017

Gounod: Faust, CG 4 / Act 3

Work length3:13

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2016

No.14b Air des bijoux: "Ah! Je ris de me voir"

Track length3:13

Gounod: Faust, CG 4 / Act 5

Work length2:52

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), John McCormack (tenor), Giuseppe Mario Sammarco (bass (vocal))
New Symphony Orchestra
Landon Ronald
Recorded: 2017

All’erta, all’erta, o più tempo non è!

Track length2:52

Bemberg: Elaine - Act 1

Work length2:49

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Herman Bemberg (piano)
Ladies' Chorus
Recorded: 2017

L’amour est pur comme la flamme

Track length2:49

Massenet: Don Cézar de Bazan - Act 3

Work length3:00

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano)
New Symphony Orchestra
Landon Ronald
Recorded: 2017

À Séville belles Señoras

Track length3:00

Puccini: Tosca / Act 2

Work length3:26

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano)
New Symphony Orchestra
Landon Ronald
Recorded: 2017

Vissi d'arte

Track length3:26

Lotti: L’infedeltà punita - Act 1

Work length4:00

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

Pur dicesti, o bocca, bocca bella

Track length4:00

Thomas, Ambroise: Distance Tests (From Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet Mad Scene)

Work length1:47

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

Tosti: La serenata

Work length3:37

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

Tosti: Goodbye

Work length3:56

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

Ronald: Four Impressions

Work length2:39

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

4. The Sounds Of Earth Grow Faint

Track length2:39

Burleigh, H T: Jean

Work length2:56

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Landon Ronald (piano)
Recorded: 2017

trad.: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Arr. Burleigh)

Work length2:30

Dame Nellie Melba (soprano), Harold Craxton (piano)
Recorded: 2017

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The farewell performance of Dame Nellie Melba, world-famous prima donna of her day, on the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she had sung hundreds of times over an unprecedented span of 40 years, remains a justly famous occasion, of which recorded extracts have been reissued previously. What makes the present release unique?

Firstly, it presents everything that the experimental electrical recording process captured on that evening of 8 June 1926: excerpts from the roles of Desdemona and Mimì, and speeches by Lord Stanley and Dame Nellie herself, ending in tears. Secondly, the original sources are as reliable and clear as may be found today, supplied by the Historic Singers Charitable Trust. Thirdly, those sources have been newly remastered for the first time at the ‘French’ pitch which Melba herself used, rather than the slightly higher concert pitch which is now ubiquitous both in live performances and on record.

The ‘Farewell’ portion of this Eloquence release is complemented by both Melba’s last recording, made six months later, and by the fascinating comparison which may then be made with some of her earliest studio recordings from 1904–10. If nothing else, these arias and songs bear out the astonishment of many listeners, both at the time of Melba’s farewell and ever since, at the remarkable preservation of her voice and of its sovereign qualities of steadiness, purity and beauty.

Gramophone’s principal vocal critic at the time was Herman Klein, who was apt to compare the recordings of singers with their vocal performance on stage, and often unfavourably. Yet when the first records of the ‘Farewell’ were issued, in October 1931, he was unequivocal: they were ‘a remarkably true and faithful reproduction of the voice and method of the last of the Victorian prima donnas; and as such they are bound for all time to command grateful appreciation’.

The presentation of this reissue includes several rarely seen photographs of Melba, and a detailed note by the historian of voices Roger Neill, who co-compiled the recent 4CD Eloquence set of ‘From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record’ (4825892). That set was widely acclaimed for the excellence of both recordings and documentation: ‘magnificently curated’ (Limelight); ‘an absolute must-have’ (Gramophone); ‘an astonishing and enthralling cavalcade’ (Opera magazine). ‘Melba’s Farewell’ is sure to attract the same accolades.

Reviews

February 2018

Amazing that Nellie Melba was 65 when she said farewell to Covent Garden with such a youthful sounding Mimì. Forget the surface noise – Melba’s technique triumphs throughout.

Melba’s Farewell

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