My friend Robert Reitano was not happy from the start. “Undeserving” was how he described Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (actually that was the least offensive word he used), when it was announced that that she would be appearing as Dame Nellie Melba in Downton Abbey.
Certainly Kiri has a quite different sort of voice from
Nellie, but aside from that mere detail, they do appear to have several things
in common. In the 1920s, when the current series is set, Melba was in the
evening of her career – as Kiri is now. They were both major operatic stars and
household names. And both conquered Europe and America, having grown up in
Australasia.
However, now it’s clear that Kiri will be singing “O mio
babbino caro” (O my beloved father) from Puccini’s comic opera Gianni Schicchi,
Robert is positively outraged.
“Have you seen the trailer?” he asks. “Gianni Schicchi was only
premièred at the Met in December 1918 and the aria was virtually unknown
outside of the opera until Joan Hammond’s famous recording in English in 1941.
Surely Melba would have sung ‘Home, Sweet Home’, or ‘Comin’ thru the rye’ or
‘Annie Laurie’ or something by Hahn or Bemberg or Tosti. An operatic aria is
unlikely on such an occasion in such a venue. Yet another Downton solecism,
surely.”
What’s right about the re-enactment is that Melba did indeed
sing at evening soirées in aristocratic houses, as did many of the opera stars
of her era. The difference was that they all arrived by the tradesmen’s
entrance, sang behind a velvet rope, did not mingle with the guests and left by
the same door.
Melba, on the other hand, entered and departed through the
front door, cleared away the velvet rope and chatted freely with the guests,
many of whom were close personal friends. Her charge for such an occasion was
£500, equivalent to around £40,000 in today’s money. And for this consideration
she would sing perhaps three songs.
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