Description
DAME NELLIE MELBA Autograph Letter Signed.
Australian operatic soprano.
ALS. 1p. No place, no date, no addressee (Apparently, the last page of a longer letter. The addressee is probably the singer Clara Butt).
"Telegraph when you can come. If possible make it early in the morning as I am very busy. I generally go out before 11. Yours sincerely, Nellie Melba." With good, large signature.
12mo. Approx 5.75 x 4.5 inches. Remains of two old mounting hinges to blank verso. Very good.
Nellie Melba was the first Australian singer (or classical musician of any kind) to achieve world-wide recognition. She was one of the foremost soprano singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and one of the all-time opera greats. She was the first internationally renowned artist to make a radio broadcast (which she did from Marconi's studios in Chelmsford in 1920, singing two arias). Although her correspondent is not identified in this partial letter, it is most probably Clara Butt (or her husband, Kennerley Rumford), as the letter is from a cache of letters which were all, or mostly, addressed to them.
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