Songs in the key of Liv - The Stage

Olivia Newton-John may have passed away in 2022, but her legacy lives on in the love of her family and in Melbourne, the city in which her remarkable performing arts career began.

Words by Nick Buckley

Communication between a mother and child takes many forms. There are the months in utero, then care is passed through taste and touch. Most people hear before they can speak or even see, and a parent's soothing lullaby is often the first musical exchange, the bedrock of a connection that may continue to bloom into adulthood.

For Chloe Lattanzi and her mum, Olivia Newton-John, the beloved Australian pop star, songwriter, actor and entertainer, it was music that deepened their bond. And at the heart of their musical pairing was the piano, one of the few instruments two people can play together, side by side.

For my mom and me, if we were confused about what we were feeling, the piano was a way for us to get clarity. The piano was our alchemy, says Lattanzi, from her home in Florida. If we were in pain or suffering, we could find out what was really going on within us by sitting down, being silent and then making music. Creating healing out of that suffering or healing out of that pain or insight out of that pain. If we were joyful and feeling creative, well, then there's something even more beautiful

Newton-John's legacy continues in many ways. There's her rich songbook of hits of course, but also her pioneering Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne, along with the precious objects that gilded her creativity and transformed so many of her performances into iconic cultural moments.

In a major 2025 acquisition, the Australian Performing Arts Collection at Arts Centre Melbourne has acquired the last piano owned by Newton-John a stunning turquoise blue Steinway along with 25 other items including costumes, song lyrics and Newton-John's 2002 ARIA Hall of Fame award thanks to the generous support of Melbourne-based philanthropist Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM. This year, Campbell-Pretty also enabled the acquisition of significant material related to Barry Humphries, including five Dame Edna Everage gowns, four pairs of her iconic glasses and a 1959 portrait of Humphries by the artist Clifton Pugh.

Musically, there's a lot of beginnings. because when she got that blue piano, that was the beginning of her journey again with cancer. Lattanzi says. But Lattanzi has fond memories too. She lets out a big laugh remembering wiping up a pool of tea spilled on the instrument by the family cat, Magic, and gathering around it to sing Christmas songs with visiting friends.

Mom would get nervous to do that. She was shy by nature. You wouldn't know that about her!, says Lattanzi But we would love it when she just let loose.

But when the clouds suddenly broke, rich turquoise waters surrounded their vessel. It was a colour Newton-John came to call 'Bahama-blue' and described as her 'spirit colour.'

Newton-John's desire for this particular color of instrument was more than just aesthetic. For the first of her birthdays spent with her husband, John Easterling, the pair took a trip to the Out Islands of the Bahamas, enjoying a week in a house only accessible by boat. As Lattanzi explains, during a supply run, the pair feared the boat they were piloting had been driven into open water by a large storm. But when the clouds suddenly broke, rich turquoise waters surrounded their vessel. It was a colour Newton-John came to call Bahama-blue and described as her 'spirit colour' Newton-John had a pendant made from the sand and coloured precious stone Paraibu tourmaline that Lattanzi now wears every day.

The idea for the blue piano began to take shape as Newton-John's imagination in 2019, when she worked with her friend Bruce Roberts, the legendary piano artists including Donna Summer, Dionne Warwick, the Pointer Sisters. Roberts suggested she see the last songwriter and piano restorer Jim Wilson at Steinway. in need of refinishing. Wilson assured her he'd by courier to the Lyall Hotel in Melbourne to collect it....., (?) before finally delivering the piano to Santa Ynez ranch in California. There, Wilson fine tuned the piano, finishing with a performance of the song, Dreamland.

She shared videoing me on her iPhone while playing, nodding her head, signalling me to keep going. We also had a really a lovely chat about music .... and just life in general, Wilson tells me. I saw the most gracious, down-to-earth lovely person I've ever met... She signed the piano's sound [lid), Love and Light Olivia which is exactly what.....(?) she does.

Personal items belonging to Olivia Newton-John ...........(?)

The piano was then flown to Newton-John were new acquisitions include a classic motorcycle-style jacket worn during her mid-2000s Summer Nights residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas, T-shirts worn to perform 'Physical' in concert, and her 2002 ARIA Hall of Fame Award. For Campbell-Pretty, it was crucial to secure the cultural history of one of the nation's great female performers for posterity.

Arts Centre Melbourne has the finest collection of performing arts archive material in Australia. It's excellent, Campbell-Pretty says. Performing arts collections document both cultural and social history. The latter is particularly important as it's the history of how we live, the things that we do and enjoy every day. That, of course, changes over time and the Collection documents those changes through key objects that are part of people's lives.

That jacket is more than just a costume. Its hardiness is emblematic of Newton-John's resilience.

Cultural history has orbited around Newton-John from the time she leapt to fame in the mid 1960s to her iconic big-screen performance in Grease and then to the top of the charts with Physical. And it all came together towards the end of her life during her Las Vegas residency between 2014 and 2016, when she performed many of her celebrated hits.

During the residency, Newton-John initially wore her original jacket from Grease, but the rigours of performance soon necessitated a purpose-made, rhinestone-studded leather version which is now also part of the Australian Performing Arts Collection, thanks to Campbell-Pretty.

But that jacket is more than just a costume. Its hardiness is emblematic of Newton-John's resilience, who unbeknownst to the audience would often leave the stage in agony.

She went through good times when she had a lot of energy and then there were times when I was really concerned about her, says Lattanzi of the residency. She was going through the most unbearable pain and you would never know it, giving the most incredible performance... My mother was an incredible woman.

Letting go of a parent's belongings is tough for any child. While the piano will now be treasured in its new Melbourne home, Lattanzi has kept the most precious thing of all, something she hopes to one day release to the world-the final unfinished batch of songs Newton-John wrote at her beloved Bahama-blue piano.

The blue piano represents so many incredible beginnings that now I have the honour of finishing. So many ideas, songs that she began for herself, us together, that are now there for me to finish, Lattanzi says. She's entrusted me to finish these works.

Olivia Newton-John's blue piano will go on display to the public for the first time when DIVA opens at AMPA on 11 December 2025.

Arts Centre Melbourne gratefully acknowledges Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and family's generous support of the Australian Performing Arts Collection.

Photo caption:

Olivia Newton-John and daughter Chloe Lattanzi, with the Bahama-blue piano. Photography by Michelle Day (oliviaportraits.com).