NELLIE MELBA.FAREWELL PERFORMANCE.Royal Opera House.1926.London.ELECTRIC RECORDING TECHNIQUE.
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- Опубліковано 10 вер 2024
- Melba's first Electric Recording.
The great Dame Nellie Melba,aged 65, Australian operatic soprano,star of the late 19th and early 20th. centuries sings Farewell to Covent Garden,"My operatic home", in fully staged/costumed Acts in the presence of King George V and his Consort,Queen Mary watching from the Royal Box.
A truly Gala Evening.
Born Australia 1861. Died Australia 1931.
Some of the singers in the opera extracts singing with Melba were contracted to various record labels,who insisted that their singers were NOT to be recorded-----hence the sharp breaks in some pieces.
This electric Melba Farewell Gala was the second from Covent Garden---- Chaliapin's electrical recording being the first a few weeks earlier.
Also,this was electrical outside recording in it's infancy, using a temporary long electric cable from Covent Garden to the actual 'Recording Laboratory' in Central London where the performance was recorded directly on to shellac Masters-----recording virtually blind, using telephone instructions to STOP/ START !! It's a miracle anything was actually recorded !
It must have been a nightmare.
Someone told me the Covent Garden Chaliapin electrical recording a few weeks earlier was actually a 'Dry Run' for the Melba Farewell.
Clip 1. Verdi:Otello--"Ave Maria".
Clips 2 &3 .Puccini. La Boheme Act III--"Donde lieta usci" AND "Addio dolce svegliare".
Photos:-
Melba.
Royal Opera House,Covent Garden,London.
Melba postage stamp.
Programme.
In my UA-cam Videos you will also find: Nellie Melba. LAST LONDON ELECTRIC RECORDING. La Traviata. In Small Queen's Hall. Dite alla giovine.1926.DECEMBER.
In January 1927 Melba sailed home to Australia.
These clips,and Melba's Farewell Speech are available on EMI CD..
Remarkable in her 60s to still have such a voice!!!
Well: at her ripe age and after such a seasoned and illustrious career, her middlle and top voice is still splending, ringing and extraordinarily beautiful. Far better so many other "star sopranos" of our generation! Pure Golden Age.
Yes, so much better than the aged Sutherland, whose diction was 'orrible and voice went into her throat.
My grandfather heard her in the theatre & said he voice had remarkable purity & a perfectly projected floating quality.
Her electrical recordings are her best. The old acoustic technology gives impressions of what the voice sounded like. The electrical do 70% more. However, in truth, there is still nothing like being there.
This is a positive testament to her superb voice and technique!!
I feel as though she is singing to me over the years with the sublime voice floating down to me as from an angel. One of the most moving recordings that I have experienced ever.
I am very grateful to Lochness11 and send my sincere best wishes. It is a privilege to hear this wonderful recording from 1926, the year my dear Mother, now passed on, was born. She spoke of Nellie Melba and she formed my love of true opera singing as Melba so beautifully demonstrated, to all our Joy 87 years later. SJP
Mi abuelo le puso melba a mi mama por nelly melba...
what a transformation from the early recordings. you can imaging what her voice would sound like with modern recording techniques
Great historical document this!
Supremely youthful sounding , at 65, as Mimi!
I remain absolutely spellbound with this - how could there be found three people who don't feel life is all the better for these sounds - quite heavenly.
Between Chaliapin and Melba, Margaret Burke Sheridan, the great Irish diva,
was recorded in excerpts from Act 4 of BOHEME onstage at Covent Garden - luckily these are posted on UA-cam also. Recorded 4 days before the Melba farewell, the recording is almost certainly a 'test' for the Melba gala, so that the engineers could adjust balances for the historic farewell. Some of the earliest electrical recordings ever made.! Melba is is in astonishing voice for such a long career in which she took on most unwise roles at certain points, including Aida and Brünnhilde! But such was her technique that it did her no lasting harm. Sheridan is a superb singer also, and it's great to have her youthful voice documented. It didn't last long!
Che meraviglia...a 70 anni questa tenuta di voce, suono perfetto...
Many thanks for this collectors item and at 63 she's in good voice, imagine that farewell
at the Garden, so very moving.
You sir are such a credit to us listener's....I thank you.
She was 65
Thankyou schlusnus.
MARAVILLOSA
Nicely remastered. Thanks for uploading.
Well that was a treat. I have only heard her on gramophone recordings before but and her voice sounded thin but this shows that her tone was beautiful and she was in her 60's. Isn't it a shame that we do not have Enrico also.
Ive only ever heard her phonograph records till now, and i must admit I didn't like them. Her voice seemed to lack resonance and clarity. but now I hear this and its wonderful! totally different to the fuzzy phonograph recordings, it sounds like a totally different voice! I do wish we had electric recordings of her when she was young
After that there is a speech by Dame Melba .... !
Wonderful!
A testament to a rock solid technique, plus having the sense to sing roles within the scope of her voice (except of course her disastrous single performance of the Siegfried Brunnehilde. What WAS she thinking?) Melba said "Good singing is easy singing." It was said that she "spoke on the melody." Note the absence of vibrato. Marchesi did not think much of vibrato. She said if singer had vibrato that the singer "was losing their voice or never had one to start with."
re: the Siegfried Bruennhilde. It has been suggested that, when someone recommended that she sing the soprano role in Siegfried, the intent was the part of the forest bird.
amen to that..never heard the Bruennhilde, curious...My guess is that the commment of J Fitton is correct however, as she would have perfect for that. However, in her time, the technique for those roles, Norma, o Violetta era essentially the same (it was the voice that made the difference), and healthy for the voice, renewing it at every note..unlike the idées récues de nos jours, from whom, ah! qui lo sa! So , with the high and healthy placement, she would have come through Bruennhilde (which is quite short in the Siegfried part of the Ring, of course) better than most now who make a profession of the whole Ring, from what I'm hearing now..
but i hear vibrato...
There is no "absence of vibrato" in her singing at all. Nor should there be. Vibrato is a natural byproduct of a relaxed voice.
@@filemakercowboy8138 Right!
csodás hangja volt,.....
If only Caruso lived a few more years
Lets hope the trend continues and that there is another great Australian coloratura waiting in the wings to burst onto the operatic stage
So many wonderful Australian coloratura sopranos have followed Melba, apart, of course, from Sutherland. Joan Carden and Yvonne Kenny just two who also sang with the Royal Opera and Opera Australia.
So this was her last international performance, and to think that back in Australia her great successor was born at around the same time; Dame Joan Sutherland. Lets
Yes, you just reminded me that Dame Joan was born in 1926, the year this recording of Melba's farewell was made. What a coincidence of continuity! Both Australians, singing the same repertoire, both with superb trills and agility.
I admire her. 3:24
One of the most poignant arias in opera recorded by one of the best sopranos whose voice we have access to. "In ora della morte." How prescient those words.
Amazing. My great-grandfather was the chief electrician at Covent Garden, I wonder if he was involved.
I would think he was certainly involved, perhaps not realising in 1926 he was making history, in discussions with the HMV Recording Producer and the HMV recording technicians.
I honestly feel she improved with age. People blame the recording techniques of the time as to why her voice sounded so thin in the early days but I don't agree. I believe she actually just improved with age
Vaughan Hamilton ... I Agree also....most trained voices get richer and more burnished with time....
In my opinion, the role of recording techniques is very important, because not all voices are equally "phonogenic", especially in the acoustic technique. There are great singers whose acoustic recordings are often disappointing, and whose true richness is only beginning to be captured when the electric method became mainstream. An extreme example of this is soprano Elvira de Hidalgo: her electrical recordings, made in Greece in the Thirties, are from her days of vocal decline, and yet they allow us to appreciate the density and timbre of her voice much better than any acoustic recording of her best years. And Pertile, Lázaro, Cortis, Ponselle, even Battistini, are other examples of singers who offer the best of themselves (or their vocal qualities) through their electric discography...
I have not heard these before, and what a surprise! The sublime silvery tone is there but I actually hear a suggestion of tremolo at times, which is not apparent in the older recordings. Did this come in with age or was it always there?
Or is it important. She was 65 then She showed no tremolo earlier. She was of the Garcia school and purity was everything
These days it is tremolo and wobbly which is what the young are up to unfortunately
Let's get back to purity
+brian barnett You are so right! Most singers tremolo or wobble! A true vibrato is very close. If you can hear 2 pitches, it is not correct.
There is nothing worse than forcing a straight tone however like choral singers do.
How many 'outside' electrical recordings had been done prior to this point and what type of equipment was used to accomplish it?
This Farewell was her first electric recording.
Later in the year she went into the Small Queens Hall, London to record Dite alla giovine from La Traviata.
In my uploads.
Sorry! The best Desdemona was Renata Tebaldi.
Dame Nallie met Verdi and was guided by the composer,how to sing Desdemona. Her pure voice and exquisite technique without any technical problems is simply amazing that’s why she was favorite soprano of Gound, Puccini, Verdi, Rachmaninoff, Thomas and many others! Her trills were the best that I’ve ever heard. When Renata Tebaldi at the same age couldn’t singing… that’s because of technical problems, she had amazing instrument, very beautiful spinto soprano’s voice, but she couldn’t using her voice properly with whole potential. Also her trills are not trill at all…😊 especially in aida or in Otello, her voice is flat in high notes that is the result of lack of technique ,wich Melba never had, because her teacher was magnificent Mathilde Marchesi.
She was born too late. She would have been great in country "music". Oh, my...