QUOTE : Not many could remember the great diva Nellie Melba anymore. But when she performed 'Lohengrin', her soaring operatic voice greatly moved those at Covent Garden, including Escoffier. And so while the details of her performance are forgotten, as is the opera itself, nearly everyone in the world has had a variation on Peach Melba. Perhaps, unlike the original, it was not covered in a lace of spun sugar or served in a sliver bowl resting on a block of ice sculpted to look like the wings of the mythical swans that appear in the opera's first act, but it still contained ripe peaches, vanilla ice cream, and a puree of sugared raspberry, and was most certainly called "Melba.