Caradori-Allan, Maria Caterina Rosalbina

1800-1865

French soprano. Born in the Casa Palatina, Milan, daughter of the Baron de Munck, an Alsatian officer, who had served with the French army. Her education in music was completed by her mother entirely unassisted, and when, at her father's death, she was compelled to support herself she went on the stage, taking her mother's name of Caradori. She  made her debut at the King's Theatre, London, in 1822, as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro. Her charming manner of performing the role laid the cornerstone of her later success. In 1824 she sang the second role in II Fanatico with Catalani, and later appeared in La Clemenza di Tito, Elisa e Claudio, and in Corradino, as the prima donna. In 1825 she sang the second part in L'Adelnia by Generali. and the same year she sang in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on its production by the Philharmonic Society. She next sang in The Barber of Seville, Romeo and Juliet and in The Marriage of Figaro again, and her salary rose from three hundred pounds, in 1822, to one thousand two hundred pounds in 1827. But it was in concerts that she was most successful and did her best work. She took part in the festival in Westminster Abbey, singing, With Verdure Clad, brilliantly, and in 1846 sang the soprano part in the first performance of Elijah. She died at Surbiton, Surrey in 1865.