Frances Alda was New Zealand's original opera diva.
FRANCES ALDA Opera singer 1879
New Zealand's original opera diva
Before Phar Lap and long before Crowded House, there was opera star Frances Davis Alda. The Christchurch-born soprano has been claimed by Australia for her upbringing in Melbourne.
But Alda made her feelings clear after a transtasman tour in 1927.
"I'm through with Australia," she told reporters. "What a place. The people are simply loathsome, the hotels abominable, the theatres unendurable, and the railways insufferable.
"New Zealand is different. It is a lovely place with lovely people and a lovely climate."
Born Fanny Davis in 1879, Alda had a turbulent start to life. Her parents divorced in 1880 and her mother died four years later.
She and her brother settled in Melbourne with their maternal grandparents. Her grandfather was a conductor and opera promoter, her grandmother a soprano.
With limited opportunities for classical opera in Melbourne, Alda left for Europe aged 22. Singing lessons provided the polish needed for an opera career - and her stage name.
After performances in Paris and Brussels, Alda stood in for the great Nellie Melba at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden.
Perhaps threatened, Melba ensured a string of subsequent stand-in performances were cancelled. It was the beginning of a fierce and long rivalry.
Alda's debut at Covent Garden brought her to the attention of Arturo Toscanini and Giulio Gatti-Casazza of La Scala in Milan.
She sang at La Scala from 1906 until 1908, then moved with Toscanini and Gatti-Casazza to the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Alda and Gatti-Casazza married in 1910 but the union was strained from the start.
Although she prospered at the Metropolitan, the couple separated in 1928.
Alda did recital tours in America and overseas. She toured with the Metropolitan Opera Quartet to small-town America, where opera was largely unknown.
A prolific recording artist, she was one of the earliest singers to spot how radio could bring opera to large audiences.
The 1927 tour reawakened her feelings for New Zealand. She heard Māori music in Rotorua and recorded several Māori songs.
Forthright and fiery, Alda was a shrewd businesswoman who supported new artists. After her retirement from the Metropolitan in 1928, she continued to do radio recordings and vaudeville performances.
Alda remarried in 1941, to an American advertising executive 10 years her junior. She died in Venice on holiday in 1952 aged 83.
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