★★★½☆ A fascinating telling of Melba’s life, marred by a problematic performance.

Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA
November 13, 2015

Australia’s first opera star is revealed up close and personal in a racy, intimate and heart-rending new opera. Nellie Melba ruled supreme over the world’s opera stages in the late 19th and early 20th century and was worshipped by millions of fans. The opera Melba composed by Johannes Luebbers was given its premiere by post-graduate students from the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts on the weekend. Further seasons are being planned for Sydney and New York.

Librettist Nicholas Christo used as his source Ann Blainey’s revelatory biography I Am Melba. His focus it is not the recordings, tours and writing achievements of this self-made business woman, nor her tireless fundraising during the Great War for which she was bestowed the title Dame. Instead her glittering successes are the frame for an intimate domestic story.

The opera, directed by Christo, opened with Melba at the height of her career asking an adoring Melbourne audience “Have I done you proud?”  The story unfolded retrospectively with the older Melba watching and contributing arias from Puccini, Verdi and Bizet along the way. The tension was apparent...