Mrs. Edward Knight, née Mary Ann Povey (1804–1861) was an English-American singer and actress in comic opera.
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(later Mrs. Edward Knight)
Mary Ann Povey was born in Birmingham, England.[1][2][a] She was described as "especially good in comic opera", and as time went on she portrayed an increasing range of characters and became affiliated with the Park Theatre.[3] At age 12 she became a student of Mr. Tom Cooke and made her stage debut as a singer at Drury Lane Theatre in 1817.[2]
When she arrived in the United States in the 1820s, she "stood at the very summit of popular regard, and her songs were certainly given with a spirit and expressiveness at that time entirely unrivalled... As an actress in comic opera, she was superior to any contemporary star; and in later life, in a broader range of chambermaids, country girls and elderly spinsters, she acquired a deservedly high repute."[1]
In 1826 at St Pancras New Church, Povey married Edward Knight, a musician and son of the actor Edward Knight.[4][2] Their only child, a daughter, died in 1845. Four years later, she returned to England after becoming partially blind as a result of a disease caused by excessive weeping.[3] Knight died in October 1861 at Brompton, England.[1][2]
Notes
edit- ^ Sources variously give her birth date as 26 January or 26 July 1804
References
edit- ^ a b c Ireland, Joseph Norton (1866). Records of the New York Stage: From 1750 to 1860. T. H. Morrell. pp. 511–12. ISBN 9780608416922.
- ^ a b c d Brown, T. Alston (1870). History of the American Stage. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald. p. 206.
- ^ a b Phelps, Henry Pitt (1880). Players of a Century: A Record of the Albany Stage. Including Notices of Prominent Actors who Have Appeared in America. J. McDonough. p. 160.
- ^ "Marriages". The Hull Packet and East Riding Times. England, Hull, East Yorkshire. October 3, 1826. p. 3. Retrieved October 24, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
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