1 Dollar - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Dame Nellie Melba

Dame Nellie Melba — born Helen Porter Mitchell in Richmond, Victoria, in 1861 — took her stage name from Melbourne and became the first Australian to achieve genuine international operatic celebrity, performing at Covent Garden and the Paris Opéra at the height of her fame. She was also among the earliest classical artists to record for gramophone, making her voice commercially available to audiences who would never see a stage. The pad-printing technique used on this issue allows chromatic detail impossible through traditional striking, a process Perth has used selectively for portrait and commemorative releases since the mid-2000s.