This new exhibition honours Australia's first musical star.
Celebrating the life and legacy of a Melbourne-born icon of global opera, Yarra Ranges Regional Museum is set to host a retrospective of Australia’s most famous soprano, Dame Nellie Melba.
On display from Saturday 15 February to Sunday 29 June 2025, new exhibition A Toast to Melba will display a wide array of artefacts from Dame Melba’s private archive.
A Toast To Melba
- Yarra Ranges Regional Museum
- 35-37 Castella St, Lilydale VIC 3140
- Sat 15 Feb 2024 – Sun 29 Jun 2025
- Entry is free
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Brought together for the first time, the exhibition has been curated by Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne and Coombe Yarra Valley
Proud of her modest beginnings, Melba remained an Australian throughout her entire life, even with a formidable procession of international performances behind her. Perhaps best known as the first globally acclaimed performer to be live broadcast on radio in 1920, Melba’s prestige as an opera soprano saw her grace the stage of concert halls all over the world.
Fun fact: she’s also the face of the current $100 note, if you wanted a real-world demonstration of her importance to Australian arts and culture.
Born Helen Porter Mitchell in the Melbourne inner suburb of Richmond, it was while in Paris in 1886 – in a dramatic style befitting of, arguably, the most famous woman in the world – that Nellie changed her name to Melba, in tribute to her Victoria hometown.
Indeed, it was Coombe Cottage, the eventual resting place of her later years, that she warmly regarded as her true home. In a correspondence penned in 1925, Dame Melba wrote of the cottage, “I have built my Australian home almost within sight and sound of the same trees and vineyards in which I played as a child … first and foremost, I am an Australian.”
These are bold words for someone of such immense global fame. Yet Dame Melba’s icon status was as sure as destined for someone born with perfect pitch and a habitual relish for entertaining those around her.
An innate passion for opera drove Dame Melba to dream of a global career as a soprano. As such, her triumphant musical studies at the Presbyterian Ladies College in East Melbourne propelled the aspiring superstar to private tutoring under the Italian tenor Pietro Cecchi, a vital influence in mastering the core elements of professional singing.
Performing for many years in Paris and Brussels, as well as at the fearsomely prestigious Metropolitan Opera in New York, it was during her tenure at the Royal Opera in London’s Covent Garden that she secured the position as lead lyric soprano.
Such was her prowess at Covent Garden, Dame Melba was provided a permanent dressing room and sole custody of its key. In 1913, the Royal Opera celebrated the 25th anniversary of Melba’s debut performance with a gala performance of La Bohème, in which she appeared as Mimi, a role that she had originated following her studies with the opera’s composer Giacomo Puccini.
It was at the dawn of the 20th century that Dame Melba was called back to Australia and, in 1909, bought Coombe Cottage as her home in Yarra Valley. The same year saw Dame Melba lay the foundation stone of the Conservatorium of Music, built on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne.
It was here that she applied all she had learned across her illustrious career as a global opera star and taught singing to Melbourne students.
Honoured twice by the Order of the British Empire – in 1918 and 1927 – it was in 1927, four years before her death at the age of 69, that she gave her farewell performance at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne.
The upcoming exhibition, located at the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale, will showcase numerous sides of Dame Melba’s personal and philanthropic interests. A respected advocate of emerging female artists, many of Dame Melba’s personal effects include photographs and artworks commissioned by women on the fringes of the male-dominated arts spheres of the late 19th century.
Since opening in 2011, Yarra Ranges Regional Museum has striven to showcase and celebrate the vibrant, varied history of the Yarra Ranges with wide-ranging exhibitions, cultural collections, and arts programmes.
More than 13,000 artefacts and cultural relics are under the Museum’s care, including those of Dame Melba’s that are, for the first time, now presented to the public in this expansive celebration of a true Australian icon.
Celebrate the life and legacy of Dame Nellie Melba and explore the surrounding beauty of the Yarra Ranges, where Dame Melba made her home in favour of all the glamour of Europe and America.
For more information on A Toast To Melba, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Yarra Ranges Regional Museum.
