ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century vocalist Abigail Betts. The vocalist and actress known, through a career of some thirty years on the stage and concert platform, simply as 'Miss Betts' was the eldest daughter of a family of some considerable importance in the musical life of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century England. When John Betts died in 1823, he bequeathed his business to his nephew Charles Vernon and his younger brother, Arthur Betts. On 20 July 1827, she stepped out on to the stage of the English Opera House in her first performance as a singing actress. The next night, the English Opera House returned to the status quo, and the house prima donna, Miss Paton, was featured in Artaxerxes alongside resident tenor Pearman and Miss Goward. The Freebooters was played through to the end of the season, and when the English Opera House opened its 1828 season it was again the feature of the bill.
