KEMBLE, Adelaide

Adelaide Kemble (13 February 1815 – 4 August 1879) was an English opera singer of the Victorian era, and a member of the Kemble family of actors. She was the younger sister of Fanny Kemble, the famous actress and anti-slavery activist. Her father was actor Charles Kemble, her mother Maria Theresa Kemble.

Adelaide studied in London with John Braham and in Italy under the great soprano Giuditta Pasta. On 2 November 1841, she made her first operatic performance on the London stage in Norma.

In 1843 she married Edward John Sartoris and retired after a brief but brilliant career.[1] They were hosts at the Belgravia home to Chopin where, in 1849, he made his London debut. This is now marked by a plaque. She wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867), a bright, humorous story, followed by other, more mediocre tales.