Adelaide Phillipps

Adelaide Phillipps (26 October 1833 – 3 October 1882) was an Anglo-American opera singer and actress who became one of America's most admired contraltos of the Victorian era.

Early life She was born as Adelaide Maria Marianne Phillipps in St Paul's in Bristol in England, the second of six children and the only daughter of Alfred Phillipps (c1806–1867), a chemist and druggist, and Mary née Rees (c1811–1854), who with her sister was a dancing and calisthenics teacher in Bristol. Adelaide Phillipps was baptised at the church of St James in Bristol on 7 April 1833.

Musical career

It was largely owing to the Swedish singer's generosity and aid and that of local benefactors that Phillipps's father was enabled to take her abroad. They arrived in London in March 1852, and Phillipps became the pupil of Manuel García who re-trained her voice from that of soprano to contralto. In 1853 she went with her father, who was a well known falconer at the time, to Italy to continue her studies, and made her début the same year at Brescia, as Arsace in Semiramide. She sang also in Milan and other cities. Her stage name in Europe was Signorina Fillippi. alt=Portrait of a woman in Victorian dress leaning on a support.

In 1855 she returned to the United States. She made an engagement to appear in Italian opera in Philadelphia and New York City under Max Maretzek, and later went with him to Havana, Cuba. In 1860 she made her first appearance in oratorio with the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston, in the Messiah. The following year Phillipps went abroad again, and appeared in Paris as Azucena in Il Trovatore. After a professional tour in Europe she returned to the United States. In 1864 she went again to Havana, and from that time until her death she appeared in opera, oratorio, and concerts in most of the states of the Union. The Adelaide Phillipps Opera Company was organized in 1876, and on its being wound up in 1879 she joined the Ideal Opera Company, remaining with the company until 1881 and for whom she played Little Buttercup in a very successful production of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. She went on to play Fatinitza, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, Germaine in Les cloches de Corneville, the Queen in The Bohemian Girl, Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer, and the title-role in Boccaccio. She made her last appearance on the stage in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1882.

Failing health compelled her to rest, and she went to Europe in the hope of recovery, but died suddenly at Carlsbad, Germany in October 1882. Her body was brought back to the United States on the steamship Werra. She was buried at the Winslow Cemetery in Marshfield, Massachusetts beside her brother, Frederick, who had died in 1879. Phillipps' voice was a contralto, with a compass of two and one half octaves. The characters in which she excelled were Rosina, Leonora, and Azucena.