Performance by Louise Page and Phillipa Candy

 

 

Louise Page (as Dame Nellie Melba):  It is claimed that I once famously said of Australians, “Give them muck, because that’s all they understand.” Now, I would never admit to having said something like that. however, it is the sort of thing I would have liked to have said. This is a country 40 years behind current cultural trends. Such artistic apathy, such cultural malaise. And if you wish to understand me, you must understand first and foremost that I am a fiercely proud Australian, and I owe so much to this country, that I owe it to her to speak the truth, even if the truth hurts.

 

For 40 years I reigned as the queen of song over Europe and America. I mixed with royalty; I was royalty. And yet, being a native daughter of Australia, the wildness of my early days gave me an affinity with the simple folk as well.

 

In my life I achieved artistic supremacy, financial independence, recognition from royalty and commoners alike, and the status of a heroine in my own country, something hardly any Australian man could claim, let alone a woman. But I fought bloody hard too. I fought for recognition from the motherland for one of her provincial daughters. I fought to be considered an equal amongst the best of them, and I got it. And I fought with myself as I struggled with the imperfection in others.

 

But you know, always, at the end of a song recital, my thoughts would go to those dazzling white gums, the crystalline air, the glaring heat and dust, to the openness, generosity and simplicity of my fellow Australians, and I’d sing of my home, sweet home.