Maria Dickons or Martha Frances Caroline Poole (1770s – 4 May 1833) was an opera singer.

Life

Martha Frances Caroline Poole was born to a large family in the early 1770s or thereabouts. Her father, William, recognised her musical talents as a singer and harpsichordist. Dickons received her training under

Venanzio Rauzzini Venanzio Rauzzini (19 December 1746 – 8 April 1810) was an Italian castrato, composer, pianist, singing teacher and concert impresario. He is said to have first studied singing under a member of the Sistine Chapel Choir. He was a cantante sopr ...

and she appeared in one of his operas, ''La vestale'', in 1787 at the King's Theatre and then at

Vauxhall Gardens Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington in the London Borough of Lambeth, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, it is believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660, being ...

.Maria Dickons
National Portrait Gallery, London, retrieved 21 December 2014 By the time she married in 1800 she had appeared in Dublin, Edinburgh and Covent Garden where she had been paid eight pounds per annum. Unfortunately her new husband's trading was not as successful as her singing so she returned to the stage for financial reasons in 1807. She and her husband separated in 1810. Between 1807 and 1815 she appeared at prime locations in London, but her forays to Paris and Italy met with undocumented or mixed success. It is suspected that she was demoted in Venice, but she used her time valuably and she created a large multi-volume collection of Italian vocal music which she brought back to Britain. Dickons returned to Covent Garden to work with Henry Bishop in his popularised operas in 1818 and 1819 and she then retired again.W. B. Squire, ‘Dickons , Martha Frances Caroline (c.1774–1833)’, rev. John Rosselli, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 21 Dec 2014
/ref> Dickons died at her home in

Regent Street Regent Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It is named after George, the Prince Regent (later George IV) and was laid out under the direction of the architect John Nash and James Burton. It runs from Waterloo Place ...

in 1833.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickons, Maria 1770s births 1833 deaths 18th-century British women opera singers 19th-century British women opera singers