OSGOOD [née Hill], Aline (b Somerville, Massachusetts, 27 March 1845; d Philadelphia, 8 November 1911)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century singer Aline Osgood. The soprano 'Mrs. Aline Osgood' was one of the best and most successful of American singers to make a significant part of her career in Britain in the 1870s and 1880s. Mrs. Osgood was confirmed, after only a few months on the British concert platform, as an artist of the first degree, arguably the best soprano concert and ballad singer to have come over from America to Britain since Victoria had come to the throne. In the early part of 1877, Mrs. Osgood covered the provinces, giving rather more than just Messiahs. For Mrs. Osgood was engaged, along with other internationally successful American vocalists such as Charles Adams, Annie Louise Cary and Myron Whitney, for the Cincinnati May Musical Festival, and at the end of March she departed for America. Through 1879, her schedule remained heavy: she sang at Henry Leslie's 'International Concert' alongside her compatriot Emma Thursby.