Synopsis |
I AM COTTONWOOD is based on the true life story of Dame Nellie Melba, the world’s first superstar opera diva. Before Michael Jackson, before Madonna or Lady Gaga, there was Dame Nellie Melba. Hailed as “the voice of the century”, she was the toast of 19th-century Europe, performing to sold-out houses and feted by kings and queens.
However, life didn’t start out so easily for Nellie. Living in the harsh Australian Outback with her husband and baby son, she cast convention aside, travelling to Europe to study with the great Madame Marchesi, Europe’s preeminent voice teacher.
Nellie ascended to superstar heights, sacrificing everything and everyone on her way to the top. But while she brought joy to thousands, she was abandoned by her working class husband, who kidnapped their only son. Scandal, adultery and divorce formed the dark backdrop to her glittering onstage life and raised the question: What responsibility does a brilliantly gifted woman have to God and to the world to use her talents, when the cost is her family?
I AM COTTONWOOD tells the story of sacrifice and ultimate redemption.
Dame Nellie was a “guest” on Downton Abbey.
However, life didn’t start out so easily for Nellie. Living in the harsh Australian Outback with her husband and baby son, she cast convention aside, travelling to Europe to study with the great Madame Marchesi, Europe’s preeminent voice teacher.
Nellie ascended to superstar heights, sacrificing everything and everyone on her way to the top. But while she brought joy to thousands, she was abandoned by her working class husband, who kidnapped their only son. Scandal, adultery and divorce formed the dark backdrop to her glittering onstage life and raised the question: What responsibility does a brilliantly gifted woman have to God and to the world to use her talents, when the cost is her family?
I AM COTTONWOOD tells the story of sacrifice and ultimate redemption.
Dame Nellie was a “guest” on Downton Abbey.
