On Ths Day 9 March 1956 Amanda Aldridge died the day before her ninetieth birthday. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Streatham Park cemetery.
Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldrige [pseud. Montague Ring] (1866–1956), singer and composer, was born on 10 March 1866 at Luranah Villa, Hamlet Road, Penge, Surrey, the second of three daughters and third of four children of Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807?–1867), the distinguished African-American tragedian, and his second wife, Swedish opera singer Amanda Pauline, née von Brandt (d. 1915)
At the age of seventeen, she won a foundation scholarship to the newly opened Royal College of Music, where she studied singing (from 1883 to 1887) with Jenny Lind, known as the Swedish Nightingale, and Sir George Henschel. She was also a pupil of Dame Madge Kendal, who had played Desdemona to her father's Othello in 1865.
As a teacher, Aldridge's singing pupils included three distinguished African-Americans: tenor Roland Hayes, contralto Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson. Hayes went on to perform her songs throughout England and Europe. In 1925 she befriended the African-American singer and actor Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, when they visited London ( it is reported they visited her at a residence in Streatham)
(Stephen Bourne and The Stage 15 March 1956 Image © The Stage Media Company Limited)
Amanda Christina Elizabeth Aldrige [pseud. Montague Ring] (1866–1956), singer and composer, was born on 10 March 1866 at Luranah Villa, Hamlet Road, Penge, Surrey, the second of three daughters and third of four children of Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807?–1867), the distinguished African-American tragedian, and his second wife, Swedish opera singer Amanda Pauline, née von Brandt (d. 1915)
At the age of seventeen, she won a foundation scholarship to the newly opened Royal College of Music, where she studied singing (from 1883 to 1887) with Jenny Lind, known as the Swedish Nightingale, and Sir George Henschel. She was also a pupil of Dame Madge Kendal, who had played Desdemona to her father's Othello in 1865.
As a teacher, Aldridge's singing pupils included three distinguished African-Americans: tenor Roland Hayes, contralto Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson. Hayes went on to perform her songs throughout England and Europe. In 1925 she befriended the African-American singer and actor Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, when they visited London ( it is reported they visited her at a residence in Streatham)
(Stephen Bourne and The Stage 15 March 1956 Image © The Stage Media Company Limited)
