Melba: A Biography
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First Edition.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
She was born Helen Porter Mitchell in a modest Melbourne suburb, yet she would conquer the operatic stages of London, Paris, and New York, becoming the most celebrated soprano of her age — this is the extraordinary life of Dame Nellie Melba, immortalised in John Hetherington's definitive Melba: A Biography. Hetherington chronicles the meteoric rise of a fiercely ambitious Australian girl who reinvented herself in Europe, captivating royalty and commoners alike with a voice described as one of the purest ever heard, while navigating a turbulent personal life marked by a disastrous marriage, scandalous love affairs, and a relentless drive for artistic perfection. Beyond the celebrated voice, this biography uncovers the complex, contradictory woman beneath the legend — generous yet imperious, homesick yet cosmopolitan, deeply Australian yet thoroughly international in her ambitions. Hetherington writes with the precision of an accomplished journalist and the empathy of a fellow countryman, drawing on rich archival research to present a portrait that is both rigorously researched and compulsively readable. A landmark work of Australian cultural biography, Melba stands as an essential testament to a woman whose name became synonymous with greatness — and whose story still resonates with anyone who has ever dared to dream on a grand scale.
Author: John Hetherington
Format: Hardback
Published: 1967, F,W, Cheshire
Genre: Biography
Edition: First Edition.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
She was born Helen Porter Mitchell in a modest Melbourne suburb, yet she would conquer the operatic stages of London, Paris, and New York, becoming the most celebrated soprano of her age — this is the extraordinary life of Dame Nellie Melba, immortalised in John Hetherington's definitive Melba: A Biography. Hetherington chronicles the meteoric rise of a fiercely ambitious Australian girl who reinvented herself in Europe, captivating royalty and commoners alike with a voice described as one of the purest ever heard, while navigating a turbulent personal life marked by a disastrous marriage, scandalous love affairs, and a relentless drive for artistic perfection. Beyond the celebrated voice, this biography uncovers the complex, contradictory woman beneath the legend — generous yet imperious, homesick yet cosmopolitan, deeply Australian yet thoroughly international in her ambitions. Hetherington writes with the precision of an accomplished journalist and the empathy of a fellow countryman, drawing on rich archival research to present a portrait that is both rigorously researched and compulsively readable. A landmark work of Australian cultural biography, Melba stands as an essential testament to a woman whose name became synonymous with greatness — and whose story still resonates with anyone who has ever dared to dream on a grand scale.