VANERI [COLMACHE], Pauline (b Somerset Street, Portman Square, London, 23 September 1833; d 5 Acol Road, West Hampstead, London, 5 January 1916)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century Victorian vocalist Pauline Vaneri. In the summer of 1858, Edward Tyrrell Smith was running a 'cheap prices' Italian opera season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: 'Opera for the million'. By the time the season reached its height he boasted on his bills, in the place of the Signore Donatelli and Fumagalli, no lesser names than Fanny Persiani, the ageing queen of the upper leger lines, and Pauline Viardot-Garcia. And in the final week he added another leading lady, one Mademoiselle Vaneri. Pauline Vaneri made her Italian opera debut as Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia. Deprived of her English opera debut, Pauline headed to the provinces for a run of concert engagements. On her arrival back in London, Pauline took to the London concert stage. Pauline had also begun to teach, and by 1868 she was teaching singing at the Milan Conservatoire.