A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Crighton, Miss
CRIGHTON, MISS,
Made her first appearance on the English stage in 1852, and was at once recognised as a singer of no ordinary power and ability; she was then twenty-one years of age, and had been educated in the Royal Academy of Music, under the celebrated Manuel Garcia, brother of Malabran and Viardot, and master of Jenny Lind. It was only in 1847 that Miss Crighton determined on adopting music as a profession, the circumstances of her father, previous to that time, having been such as to render this devotion of her talents unnecessary; but the resolution was taken in consequence of his fortunes having suffered a wreck, in this disastrous epoch of mercantile history. Miss Crighton's debût was made on the stage of "Old Drury," in the character of the Princess Isabella, and it was, as we have already intimated, perfectly successful. She at once took the place of a Prima Donna, and a brilliant career was predicted for her, as her subsequent performances have fully justified. "The compass of her voice," said a critic at the time of her appearance, "is from D in alt to the lower G—nineteen notes of excellent quality—rich, round, and sympathetic, in every way calculated to depict varying dramatic emotion."