Emma Albertazzi was an English stage contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

.

Born Emma Howson, she was the daughter of Francis Howson, an English music professor. She was a pupil of Michael Costa

Michael Costa (conductor)

Sir Michael Andrew Angus Costa was an Italian-born conductor and composer who achieved success in England.-Biography:He was born in Naples as Michaele Andrea Agniello Costa, to a family, according to some, of Sephardic stock...

 with whom she began studying at the age of 14 in London. She debuted in 1829 at Argyle Rooms, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. She was engaged at Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre

Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

 in 1830, and then in Piacenza

Piacenza

Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in 1831, where she married the Italian lawyer Albertazzi. While in Italy she was a pupil of famed soprano Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...

. She sang in La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

 (1831), Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

 (1833), and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the Théâtre des Italiens (1830, 1835, 1837), her most brilliant period. She reappeared in London in 1837-1839 where she notably performed in the world premiere of Michael William Balfe

Michael William Balfe

Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best-remembered for his opera The Bohemian Girl.After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed 38 operas, almost 250 songs and other works...

's Falstaff on 19 July 1838. She then went back to Italy where she performed during the 1840s, although she appeared at the Princess's Theatre

Princess's Theatre, London

The Princess's Theatre or Princess Theatre was a theatre in Oxford Street, London. The building opened in 1828 as the "Queen's Bazaar" and housed a diorama by Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts. It was converted into a theatre and opened in 1836 as the Princess's Theatre, named for then Princess...

 in London in October 1846 for the world premiere performances of Edward Loder

Edward Loder

Edward James Loder was an English composer and conductor. His best remembered work is the 1855 opera Raymond and Agnes.-Biography:...

's opera The Wilis, or The Night Dancers in the role of Giselle opposite Sara Flower

Sara Flower

Sara Elizabeth Flower was a British-born contralto singer now almost forgotten to history who became Australia's first operatic diva...

 in the role of Bertha. The Wilis ran for 21 performances, with Albertazzi's final performance on 7 January 1847. She had, however, already given a farewell concert in London in 1846.

According to Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians is a biographical dictionary of musicians.The first edition of Baker's, under the title A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, was published in 1900 by Theodore Baker; it has since gone through nine editions.The 5th edition of 1958, 8th edition of 1992,...

, she had a fine voice, but no passion or animation in singing or acting. Henry Fothergill Chorley

Henry Fothergill Chorley

Henry Fothergill Chorley was an English literary, art and music critic and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics....

 (1808–1872) expressed the same view in his musical memoirs. However, his near contemporary, dramatic author, Edward Fitzball

Edward Fitzball

Edward Fitzball was a popular English playwright, who specialised in melodrama. His real surname was Ball, and he was born at Burwell, Cambridgeshire.Fitzball was educated in Newmarket, was apprenticed to a Norwich printer in 1809...

 took a different view:

As Ninetta in La Gazza Ladra - a more beautiful representative ... never presented itself to the tearful eye, or tender heart , ...Her voice was unsurpassable ... . Her singing of Di Piacer is not to be described. … poor lovely Albertazzi, … died young after a brief career, like a bird that sings sweetly beneath our lattice, then takes flight to more sunny regions. … An Englishwoman by birth … voice and execution have seldom been surpassed by a foreigner.

According to Fitzball, Albertazzi 'died young in a deep decline', the term 'deep decline' possibly period code for tuberculous meningitis

Tuberculous meningitis

Tuberculous meningitis is also known as TB meningitis or tubercular meningitis.Tuberculous meningitis is Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection of the meninges—the system of membranes which envelops the central nervous system. It is the most common form of CNS tuberculosis.-Clinical features:Fever...

.

Albertazzi was the sister of singers Francis [Frank] and John Howson who made important contributions to operatic history in Australia 1840s- 1860s; and aunt to Frank Howson's daughter Emma Howson

Emma Howson

Emma Howson was an Australian opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of the principal soprano role of Josephine in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera H.M.S...

, soprano and vocal teacher, who, with the Howson troupe, toured in the U.S. in the 1870s with some success, settling there permanently.