Adelaide Phillipps was a Contralto singer, born in Stratford-on-Avon. The family moved to Canada, and hence to Boston, when Adelaide was seven years old. She studied music with Thomas Comer and Mme. Arnouldt, and in 1850 she sang before Jenny Lind and was advised to devote herself to music. She was an intelligent girl, and she always put her effort into learning something new.
A subscription was raised, Miss Lind and Jonas Chickering being the chief contributors, and in 1852 Adelaide went to London, where she studied under Manuel Garcia, and finished in Italy, where she made her first appearance at Brescia as Arsace in Semiramide. She made her real debut in Milan as Rosina in the Barber of Seville.
In 1855, Adelaide Phillipps came back to the United States, and sang in Boston in English opera, concerts, and oratorios; she also appeared in Italian opera at the Academy of Music, New York, in 1856, in her favorite part, Azucena in II Trovatore. She went to Europe in 1861 and appeared in Paris, Hungary, Holland, and London.
From 1863 to 1881, Adelaide Phillipps toured the United States, singing with the Handel and Haydn Society and at the Peace Jubilee in Boston in 1869. Furthermore, in 1876, she formed a company of her own, but from 1879 to 1881, she sang with the Boston Ideal Opera Company. She died in Carlsbad, Germany, and was buried at Marshfield, Mass.
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