Bob Brown’s crusade to put Australia’s first diva Amy Sherwin on a pedestal

You’ve probably never heard of her, but Amy Sherwin was Australia’s first diva, paving the way for Nellie Melba. The Weekend Australian can provide first glimpse of a long-overdue art work that will finally honour ‘the nightingale of Tasmania’.

A model of the statue. Picture: Peter Schipperheyn.

Bob Brown is in crusade mode, but it has nothing to do with old growth or endangered critters; rather a forgotten diva and a chunk of Italian marble.

The former Greens leader and pioneering environmentalist is on a mission to resurrect and honour the memory of Australia’s first diva, Amy Sherwin. Sherwin was a 19th-century soprano from the Tasmanian bush, whose fame preceded, paved the way for and potentially inspired the better remembered Nellie Melba.

An “exquisitely tender, delicate” voice took the “nightingale of Tasmania” from a bush cottage in the Huon Valley to the world’s most famous opera houses.

Sherwin lived a remarkable, inspiring and ultimately tragic life, but her story has been largely forgotten.

“She remained steadfastly Tasmanian everywhere she went,” Dr Brown said. “Other people covered up that they were colonials, but not Amy. She opened the eyes of the world to talent coming from the antipodes.

“The other thing is just the brilliance of her singing, in an age where opera had become the height of entertainment.

“And she was just such a wonderful personality, a delightful person to all-comers, and did a huge amount of charitable work. She went to the slums of London and found girls with potential and at least two of them became stage stars.”

Dr Brown has gathered together other Sherwin admirers to right the national oversight via the Amy Sherwin Fund. These include former Tasmanian governor Kate Warner, Hobart actress Jane Longhurst, historian Don Garden and US-based novelist Geraldine Brooks.

They hope to raise $200,000 to have a larger-than-life marble statue of Sherwin crafted by Melbourne sculptor Peter Schipperheyn and placed near Hobart’s Theatre Royal.

It was there in 1878 that Sherwin’s career took flight as a 23-year-old, after she was discovered and immediately signed by the visiting Royal Italian Opera Company.

Australia’s first diva, Amy Sherwin.

She took Hobart by storm, then Melbourne, the United States, London and far beyond, becoming one of the most sought-after sopranos of the era, repeatedly provoking “rapturous” responses.

She sang at a London concert for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee and for the Russian tsar. Throughout it all, she remained grounded, citing her nationality as “Tasmanian” and appearing in local bushfire benefit concerts.

“She had an offer to become lead singer in the Vienna Opera Company for five years but turned it down because she wanted to come home to Tasmania, as her father was ill,” Dr Brown said.

Sherwin fell on hard times after her fame dimmed and as she struggled to support her invalid daughter Jeanette. The diva died in poverty in London in 1935, aged 80, and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave.

Dr Brown and his team hope Sherwin’s story and statue will inspire future generations, especially young singers from modest backgrounds.

“It’s a guide to people who feel that they’re up against it to keep going,” he said.

“I think her story – of a woman who came out of the bush and became a worldwide phenomenon – is an inspiration.”