From evading an abusive marriage to dying from a face lift, this is Nellie Melba

Dame Nellie Melba was the Kylie Minogue of her time, an opera singer from Richmond, Melbourne, who became a global superstar in the early 20th century.

The prima donna is immortalised on our $100 note (if you've seen one of those around lately), yet she seems to have a lost a bit of currency and is now seen by some as a bit musty, fusty and boring.

But when we made an episode about her (or two, as it turns out) on ABC history podcast The Dead Can't Sue, we discovered that her life was filled with drama and tragedy worthy of the best operas.

It's no wonder a dessert, snack and an exit strategy all bear her name.

'Colonial gem'

Melba, whose real name was Helen Porter Mitchell, was born in 1861, the eldest of 10 surviving children. She played instruments and sang from an early age, under her mother's influence.

Her father was a building contractor whose fortunes were on the rise, but as a conservative presbyterian, he was opposed to music as a career for his daughter.

However, singing at church events or for charity was acceptable, so in 1869, eight-year-old Melba had her first public performance. The 700-strong audience demanded three encores from the kid.

Historian Leigh Boucher, co-host of The Dead Can't Sue, says: "She already had a reputation as this growing colonial gem."

At the same time, Melba was also a tomboy, which led her father to pack her off to a boarding school for young women.

"[This] was more of a finishing school rather than a robust, rounded education. She ended up getting booted out for misbehaviour," Boucher says.

Melba did end up with a well-rounded education, including in music, at Presbyterian Ladies College. Her cheekiness continued; in one instance she dressed up as a nun and solicited donations for a fake charity.

But Melba's joyful adolescence well and truly ended after her mother and a beloved sister died in 1880.

After that, her father moved the family to Mackay in Queensland to run a sugar mill, and Melba, being the eldest daughter, had to run the household.

Melba gets hitched and finally makes her debut

Happily, Mackay was not, as she might've assumed, an uncultured colonial outpost and Melba slotted right into the town's thriving amateur music scene.

The 21-year-old also met Charles Nesbitt Frederick Armstrong, a son of an Irish baronet who had been sent to the colonies for being a troublemaker.

After a whirlwind romance, they married in 1882 and had a son shortly after. Conflict quickly arose between them.

"This is a young woman who has a controlling, dour, respectable father, and she's been swept up by this man with aristocratic heritage who's a bit wild," Boucher says.

"But it turned out that she probably made the mistake I think many people have made … of trying to escape the rule of a patriarch and then ending up choosing another one instead."

Melba found herself raising a child, mostly on her own, and rarely getting to perform. She decided to return to Melbourne, ostensibly to raise her son alongside her family.

Once in Melbourne, she worked with a new vocal coach to train her in the bel canto style, which was popular in Europe's concert halls.

In 1884, Melba made her professional debut at Melbourne Town Hall and it was a raging success.

"In Australian history, it was one of the most momentous debuts you could possibly imagine," Boucher says.

Melba leaves Melbourne

Melba's father finally appeared to support her ambitions. He had financed her singing classes and brought her to Europe where he was working, giving her a chance to pursue her operatic career.

But Melba's husband also went along.

"On the trip to London, Charles began to try and exert a lot of control over her. There are stories about her turning up at breakfast [on the boat over] with bruises on her face," Boucher says.

It's no wonder that on her arrival in London in 1886, abused by her husband, hampered by nerves and without the right clothes or accent, Melba flopped her pivotal audition at Covent Garden.

Undeterred, Melba travelled to Paris and became the student of German opera singer and teacher Mathilde Marchesi. She looked after her son and was barely scraping by.

"But Mathilde Marchesi identified Nellie as having a singular talent," Boucher says.

Marchesi was a maternal figure to the young singer; she improved her vocal technique but also taught her European etiquette and encouraged her to take on her stage name.

"Together they came up with this identity that both harked back to her roots — Melba being Melbourne — but nonetheless, had an air of sophistication … it was not really a rebranding, I think, but a rebirth."

Melba debuted as an opera singer in Brussels in 1887 and picked up roles across Europe, making a name for herself playing mad women.

"She quickly became renowned as having a possibly once-in-a-generation voice … by 1890 she had broken through at London's Covent Garden, wiping the memory of that failed audition away."

She also began an affair with Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, a dashing heir to the French throne.

Eventually, after Charles used the adultery as grounds for divorce and essentially abducted their son to Texas where he had relocated, the marriage was over. She didn't see her son for 12 years.

"She was not destroyed by the divorce, and she was not destroyed by the loss of her son. In fact, she sunk herself into work," Boucher says.

Farewell to Melba

Melba returned to Australia for a hugely successful tour in 1902.

"There were these amazing scenes of her returning to Melbourne and the streets being filled with thronging masses of people," Boucher says.

"Nellie was an Australian celebrity who not only was making it in Europe but was making it in European elite culture. She was proving that this was not a crass colony, but in fact a place of modernity."

But after returning to London and, whipped up by the press who claimed she had been replaced, Melba stood in the wings and rudely outsang a rival at the Royal Opera House.

"In this moment, an emerging celebrity culture just got the better of her," Boucher says.

Melba regained her perch at the top of the opera hierarchy; beloved by the royal family, she had her own dressing room at Covent Garden.

Then in World War I, she raised money for the war effort by going on a US tour. There she was reunited with her son, but the tour was also plagued by strange accidents.

"Nellie became convinced that the Germans are out to get her because she was such a useful tool for the morale of the war efforts," Boucher says.

By the 1920s Melba was in her 60s and decided to retire. This is how the phrase "doing a Melba" was invented, as she spent many years giving farewell concerts.

It was on one of those many extended farewell tours that she contracted a fever. In 1931 she died quite suddenly in Sydney of septicaemia, a complication from what the press described as "facial surgery".

Boucher says, in a time without antibiotics, it was probably an early face lift.

"Her story is not reducible to this moment, but there is something in the ways in which she had to negotiate these gendered norms, negotiate the gendered restrictions of celebrity culture, and ended up dying from a face lift … that is tragic. It was a brutal end to an incredible life."

Fans and the press across the globe mourned the death of Melba.

The New York Herald Tribune declared that she "was the last of those soprano empresses of song … Doubtless the gold age of song will return, but no Melba will sing for us again".