5 Dollars - Elizabeth II 3rd Portrait - Dame Nellie Melba - Masterpieces in Silver

Dame Nellie Melba — born Helen Porter Mitchell in Richmond, Victoria — took her stage name from Melbourne and became the most internationally celebrated soprano of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. She was the first Australian to achieve genuine global fame as a performer, commanding fees at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera that rivaled any singer of her generation. The Royal Australian Mint's Masterpieces in Silver series used her likeness in 1996 to mark the centenary of her 1894 DBE honour, though Melba herself died in 1931 after a septicaemia infection following surgery in Sydney.