ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century singer Adelina Hirlemann. She arrived in Britain in 1884 and seems first to have been heard at the concerts staged at the Albert Hall in connection with the International Health Exhibition, alongside Henry Pope, Sydney Tower, Eleanor Farnol, D'Arcy Ferris and many unknown to fame. On 4 December 1884, Mme Hirlemann went to Exeter to sing in Farley Sinkins's concerts, and she had 'appeared with very great success at the Grand Opera House, Milan, and has just returned from a year in China and Japan'. Through 1885, Mme Hirlemann was constantly to be heard at various fashionable homes in the company of others of the frequenters of such concerts: George Power, Alexandra Ehrenberg, Mrs Hutchinson, Monari Rocca, Mathilde Zimeri, Carlotta Elliot and, above all, the king of the society dinner and concert circuit of the period, Isidore Cohen, known as 'de Lara'.
