"A QUEEN OF SONG."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 247, 18 October 1929, Page 7

"A QUEEN OF SONG."

Noted Australian Contralto. Dead. MADAME CROSSLEY PASSES. (Australian and X.Z. Press Association.) (Received 2 p.m.) LONDON, October 17. The death is announced of Madame Ada Crosalev, the noted contralto singer. She was the wife of Dr. Francis Mueeke. Madame Crossley's death came as a great shock to her numerous friends. She has been in indifferent health for the past year but lately appeared a little better. Last week she was confined to her bed and became gradually worse until to-day when she died at six in the evening from cerebral haemorrhage. She was in a West End hospital.

Although it was realised that her condition was serious, Dr. Meucke, her husband, to-night informed the Australian Press Association that her sudden end was unexpected.

A service has been arranged at All Souls, Marylebone, nearby her residence on Monday. She will be buried at Golder's Green.

The "Daily Telegraph," in the course of a striking tribute entitled "A Queen of Song," says that although it is some years since Madame Crossley retired from the concert platform, there still lingers the memory of the striking beauty of her voice with its strange smoothness of quality and almost equally lino natural production. It recalls the tribute from Sir Arthur Sullivan in 1898 when, at the performance of Elijah in which Madame Ada was not engaged to sing, the contralto soloist did not appear owing to a mistake whereas Ada Crossley was asked by Sir Arthur Sullivan, who was conducting, to take the part. Ada, who knew the oratorio perfectly, stepped into the breach with immense success.

Madame Ada Crossley was born at Gippslaud, Victoria, Australia. Her mother was a member or the family of the poet, William Cowper. Madame Crossley early took up singing, and studied under Signor Alberto Zelman. the late Madame Fanny Simonsen; and under Sir Charles Santley and the late Madame Mathilde Marehesi. She made her first public appearance with the Melbourne Philharmonic Society in 1892, three years later appearing for the first time in England.