MADAME MELBA AS JULIETTE, 1892. From a Photo. by Dupont, Brussels.
An incident without precedent on the concert stage marked the concert which Melba gave at the Albert Hall, on November 2nd, to signalize her departure for her present trans-Atlantic tour. Of the three principal performers—i.e., Madame Melba herself, Miss Ada Crossley, the contralto, and Mr. Johann Kruse, the solo violinist—all were not only Australians, but Victorians by birth.
MADAME MELBA AS OPHÉLIE, 1895 From a Photo. by Reutlinger, Paris.
MADAME MELBA, 1893. From a Photo. by Renque et Cie, Paris.
Immediately after her few but brilliant appearances at Covent Garden last season, Madame Melba rented a charmingly-situated house, called "Fernley," near the river at Maidenhead. Here she entertained many friends during the month of August. A very interesting "group" photograph of three distinguished Australians—Melba, Mr. Haddon Chambers, and Mr. Bertram MacKennal—taken at that time on the lawn at Fernley, is shown at the top of this page. It will be interesting to your readers that the last-named distinguished compatriot of Madame Melba's is executing a bust of the diva, which she has decided to present to the Public Library of Melbourne. A bust of the Melbourne Melba, by the Melbourne MacKennal, is obviously an artistic event of peculiar interest.
MADAME MELBA, MR. HADDON CHAMBERS, AND MR. BERTRAM MACKENNAL. From a Photo. by H. Gude, Maidenhead.
By the way, the popular morning "daily" that unwittingly represented Melba as an athletic kind of lady, skilled in the gentle art of rowing, was sadly in error! Far and away the most interesting episode of the stay at Fernley was a visit which the prima donna and some members of her house-party paid to the grave of the poet Gray in Stoke Poges churchyard. Here, it will be remembered, Gray wrote his beautiful "Elegy"; and here, too, Melba (who, I omitted to say, is an accomplished organist, and often used to play that instrument in the Scots Church at Melbourne) expressed a desire to try the organ in the charming old church of Stoke Poges.