Helen Porter Mitchell adopted the professional name Melba to acknowledge her birthplace, Melbourne. She made her operatic début in Brussels in 1887, eventually winning acclaim at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and most of the leading opera houses of the world. Melba’s voice was remarkable for its even quality over a range of nearly three octaves, and for its pure silvery timbre. Her first recordings were made in 1904 for The Gramophone and Typewriter Company, the precursor of HMV. This final disc in the Naxos series of the Complete Gramophone Company Recordings includes a number of popular songs, which Melba embraced without condescension, as well as her definitive versions of arias from Otello and La Bohème, recorded during her farewell concert at Covent Garden, London on 8th June 1926.