Adelaide Kemble

Artist Info

Adelaide KembleLondon, 1815 - 1879, Titchfield, England

Kemble [married name Sartoris], Adelaide (1815–1879)

L. M. Middleton, revised by K. D. Reynolds

https://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2319/10.1093/ref:odnb/15315

Published in print: 23 September 2004Published online: 23 September 2004This version: 28 September 2006

Adelaide Kemble (1815–1879)

by Camille Silvy, 1860

Kemble [married name Sartoris], Adelaide (1815–1879), singer and author, was born into a celebrated theatrical family in London on 6 November 1815, the youngest of the five children of Charles Kemble (1775–1854) and his wife, Maria Theresa Kemble, née De Camp (1777–1838). She was six years younger than her only sister, the actress Fanny Kemble (1809–1893), who followed Adelaide's career with solicitude and described various episodes in their childhood in her Records of a Girlhood (1878).The philologist John Mitchell Kemble was her brother.

Adelaide Kemble, who studied music with John Braham, sang professionally for the first time at a Concert of Ancient Music on 13 May 1835 and appeared at the York festival in the following September; her performance of Handel's music was affected by nerves, and she went to Paris for further training before visiting Germany in 1837. She remained on the continent until 1841, studying in Italy with the composer Saverio Mercadante and the soprano Giuditta Pasta. She sang at La Scala, Milan, in 1838, and made her first appearance in opera at La Fenice, Venice, in the same year, as Norma. She was extremely well received, and began to be compared with Pasta; although her soprano voice lacked the weight of the Italian singer, she was to be praised for the intelligence of her interpretation and her powers as an actress. She went on to perform to great acclaim in other Italian cities, until in 1841 the serious illness of her father returned her to England.

Kemble sang at a charity concert at Stafford House, London, in June 1841, and appeared in an English version of Norma on 2 November 1841 at Covent Garden. She received even greater praise for Mercadante's Elena da Feltre in January 1842, an opera which had failed in Italy but which her performance carried through triumphantly in the English version. During the 1842 season she sang Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Caroline in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, as well as appearing in La sonnambula and Semiramide at Covent Garden, and at the Philharmonic and Ancient concerts. She retired from the stage at the end of the year, her final performance being as Norma at Covent Garden on 23 December 1842.

Kemble's retirement was occasioned by her marriage, to Edward John Sartoris (1814–1888), in Glasgow on 25 July 1842. His father was a wealthy French banker, while his mother came from the English landed gentry, and the demands of respectability barred Adelaide from further professional appearances, although she continued to sing privately in fashionable drawing-rooms. She found a further outlet as an author: 'A Week in a French Country House', published in Cornhill and in book form in 1867, was appreciated for its humour and freshness. Medusa and other Tales appeared in 1868, and was republished in 1880 as Past Hours. Adelaide and Edward Sartoris and their three children spent much of their time at their house near the Trinità dei Monti in Rome, but it was at their English home, Warsash House, Titchfield, Hampshire, that she died on 6 August 1879.

Adelaide Kemble had, in her youth, an imposing figure, with classical, finely chiselled features, and wore her hair in a Renaissance bun with elaborate ornaments. She attracted many admirers, including Frederic Leighton and the fifth duke of Portland. In maturity, like her sister Fanny, she became stout. Her short career was a source of chauvinistic pride to British audiences, who rejoiced in finding so technically accomplished a singer among their compatriots at a time when the operatic stage was dominated by continental performers.

Sources

F. A. Kemble, Record of a girlhood, 3 vols. (1878)

The Athenaeum (3 July 1841), 510

The Athenaeum (16 Aug 1879), 208

Mrs C. Baron-Wilson, Our actresses, 2 vols. (1844)

P. Fitzgerald, The Kembles: an account of the Kemble family, 2 vols. (1871)

Morning Chronicle (3 Nov 1841)

C. B. Hogan, ‘The Kemble family: a genealogical record, 1704–1925’, Theatre Notebook, 30 (1976), 103–9

S. D'Amico, ed., Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, 11 vols. (Rome, 1954–68)

J. R. Planché, The recollections and reflections of J. R. Planché, 2 vols. (1872)

H. F. Chorley, Thirty years' musical recollections, 2 vols. (1862)

C. E. Pascoe, ed., The dramatic list, 2nd edn (1880)

F. A. Kemble, Records of later life, 3 vols. (1882)

F. A. Kemble, Further records, 1848–1883: a series of letters, 2 vols. (1890)

d. cert.

CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1879)

L. Ormond and R. Ormond, Lord Leighton (1975)