ALBERTINI, Augusta [AITCHI(N)SON, Augusta Rosina] (b Bristol, bap 5 June 1823; d Florence, Italy, 23 January 1898)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century vocalists Augusta Albertin. Albertini was undoubtedly one of the outstanding English sopranos to be heard on European operatic stages in the 1840s and 1850s. 'La Albertini' was reportedly born with the surname of Aitcheson or Aitchison or Aitchinson. She was well enough considered in Italy that she was one of just four British vocalists whom the important music and theatre writer Francesco Regli thought worthy of inclusion in his celebrated operatic who's who of the 1860s. Augusta remained at Lisbon through to mid-1845, singing Elizabeth to the Mary of Giovanna Rossi-Caccia in Maria Stuarda, in Adelia and, alongside Enrico Tamberlik, the title-role of the two versions of Gemma di Vergy, otherwise Gabriella di Vergy. In early 1848, Augusta made her first appearance in Rome: 'an English girl, a pupil of Carolina Ungher', reported the British music press of her debut in Norma, alongside the celebrated Ivanhoff, 'who has grown very fat'.