Thereby hangs this tale: The rector, on it being represented to him that "Madame Melba would like to play the organ," courteously handed over the necessary keys, and Melba gave great pleasure to her audience of half-a-dozen friends by playing and singing for them a selection of pieces, which included the Gounod "Ave Maria," and ended with the National Anthem. Asked by one of the party how she had enjoyed the impromptu sacred concert, the old lady who was in charge of the church, and whose services had been requisitioned to blow the organ, enthusiastically rejoined, "Oh, it were all beautiful, m'm, but 'God Save the Queen' were best of all!"
Madame Melba is fortunate in having some one member of her family—a brother or sister, generally speaking—to accompany her on her travels. During her last American tour she had for companions both a sister and a brother—Miss Dora and Mr. Ernest Mitchell—and she still speaks of the regret with which she parted from them when they were obliged to return to their Antipodean home about the end of the last London season. She says she is not less fortunate in having a man like Mr. Charles A. Ellis (originally the business manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) to personally conduct her trans-Atlantic tours. The present one will be very much extended, and will involve the traversing of many thousands of miles by the diva and her company. The principal members of that company are Ternina, Zélie de Lussan, and Gadski, Alvarez, Bonnard, Pandolfini, Kraus, and Bonderesque, and the orchestra is controlled by Signor Seppilli and Mr. Walter Damrosch. As for Melba's répertoire, it comprises not only two rôles quite new to her—"Martha" and "La Bohème"—but also "Lucia," "Hamlet," "Manon," "Les Huguenots," "La Traviata," "Rigoletto," "Faust," "Roméo et Juliette," and "Il Barbière di Siviglia"—in the last-named of which she scored such a shining success at Covent Garden last season. While on the subject of America, I may mention that Madame Melba seriously meditates refusing an offer for a season in South America, which I take to be the most dazzling and tempting ever made to a prima donna. She whimsically says that she thinks she would rather spend the greater part of 1899 in Europe, although she looks forward with pleasure to a visit to South America later on.
I am reminded of one more "Melba anecdote." Two or three years ago she took a party of friends to see the interior of La Scala, the noble opera-house where many of her triumphs have been won. Throwing open the door of a dressing-room, their cicerone exclaimed, "This is where the celebrated Melba used to dress!" The great singer's friends began to laugh, but she, looking hard at the man, quietly asked him, "What! don't you know me?" And then this son of Italy perceived that, sans voice and sans diamonds though she might be, she still was "Melba."
It is, I think, illustrative of Madame Melba's large humanity that the simpler and more sympathetic the anecdote, the better is she pleased to tell it. For example, "one touch of nature" is to her much more than to tell of her many meetings with Royalty—of her brilliant career as queen of opera—of her impressions of the many great ones of the world into whose society she has been thrown. Of her début in opera she readily speaks, for must it not always rank as one of her pleasantest memories? It occurred at the Brussels Opera House, and at the age of twenty-two. Not at that time knowing French, Melba was permitted to sing in Italian, while the other artists sang French—an unprecedented concession to a débutante on the part of the local opera authorities. On that memorable evening, the next box to the one occupied by some friends and relatives of Madame Melba contained a lady and gentleman. At the close of the first act, the latter asked his companion as to her opinion of the débutante, when the lady was heard to reply, "Débutante! Nonsense! I heard her in Madrid ten years ago. She was an awful failure, and she's forty if she's a day!"
"Did you feel any resentment when you heard the story?" I asked.
"Not in the least," replied Madame Melba, laughing merrily, "albeit in those early days I had not grown accustomed, as, alas! I have since, to hearing strangely false reports about myself—reports sometimes amazing, sometimes absurd, and sometimes, I fear, malicious. Besides, I was in far too good a humour with the public success I had achieved to feel angry; and if the story appears in your article, and the lady sees it, I shall feel amply avenged."
Two incidents in connection with her first American tour were related to me so feelingly by the prima donna, that I must do my best to reproduce them. The first occurred in New York. Melba had been practising her part at her hotel one afternoon. Just as she had finished, and was coming out of her rooms, she encountered a strange lady, whose rooms opened into the same corridor. The unknown approached her, and said, "Madame, I think you would be touched to hear what my little boy said just now. He is lying in bed getting over an illness; and when you began to sing he lifted his tiny forefinger and whispered, 'Hist, mummy! Birdie!'"
MADAME MELBA (PRESENT DAY). From a Photo. by Reutlinger, Paris.
The second incident referred to occurred one snowy night as the diva was leaving the stage-door of the Opera House at Philadelphia. An old lady, very neatly attired, but evidently not in affluent circumstances, was waiting for her as she crossed the foot-way to her carriage. When Madame Melba appeared the old lady remarked, "Madame, I have just heard you sing, and I've waited here in the hope that you will let me take your hand." Melba, deeply touched, impulsively kissed the old lady on either cheek. This salutation won from its recipient these simple words, which Melba says she will never forget, "God bless your beautiful heart, my dear!"