Browse Items (337 total)

New Zealand-born sisters May and Mina Moore worked in Wellington before becoming successful photographers in Australia during the 1910s and 1920s. May established a studio in Sydney and Mina worked in Melbourne. The sisters were particularly…

Melba’s earliest performance as Violetta in La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi was during her first season in Brussels in 1887. At the time, her inexperience in acting was noted but the role later became a staple in her repertoire.

It was as Violetta…

Grainger’s charisma, captured in many photographic studio portraits, helped to launch and sustain his performance career. This photograph was taken by Hana Studios, London, which specialised in theatrical photography.

Henry Walter Barnett created this elegant, full-length portrait of Melba at the height of her fame. Among her many achievements in this period, Melba established a significant professional partnership with leading tenor, Enrico Caruso. They first…

Melba and Czech violinist, Jan Kubelik, undertook a joint concert tour of the United Kingdom in 1912–13, followed by this tour in the United States and Canada in 1913–14. The UK tour ran from October 1912 to August 1913 with Melba performing in two…

This promotional photograph shows Grainger holding his ‘English Dance’, which had been composed and scored between 1899 and 1909, and finally published in March 1929. The photograph, taken by family friend Frederick Morse, includes in the background…

The title role of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor highlighted Melba’s vocal abilities, particularly in the ‘mad scene’ which showcased her remarkable trill. Her 1888 Covent Garden debut in the role received a lukewarm response from critics,…

Collectable cards inserted in cigarette packaging were popular from the late 19th century to the 1940s. Designed to encourage the collection of entire sets, they were issued in themed series such as plants, wildlife and sports and theatre stars. This…

Melba’s earliest performances as Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet were at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in April 1888 and her debut at the Paris Opéra in May 1889. Thomas described her as the ‘Ophélie of my dreams’.