Wilfrid Virgo

It would seem that Virgo was British (he must later have emigrated to Canada since he died there and since, more significantly, his daughter still lived north of Toronto decades later). And it would also seem that he never sang on an operatic stage: he was the principal tenor of the large Sheffield Choir ("200 voices", as they advertised themselves), and he was part of the Cloister Quartette. For how long he sang in the Sheffield Choir, I don't know; his participation there is proven and tested for 1911 (when that choir went on a six-month tour around the world, giving 134 concerts in Canada, the US, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and South Africa). The Cloister Quartette was active in the early 1920s. Other than that, Virgo sang a whole lot in vocal groups on G&T, groups with various fancy names that centered around Peter Dawson, Stanley Kirkby and Ernest Pike; Virgo was one of the singers who occasionally completed the quartet. And he left more than 170 recordings under his own name (which was and is, by the way, often given as "Wilfred Virgo", but that seems to be wrong).

Probably the most prominent moment in his career came as early as November 1903: he was in the cast of three Carnegie Hall concerts featuring the legendary Adelina Patti; she sang only two arias, the rest of the evening was contributed by several non-prominent singers (and instrumentalists) like Virgo, who were likely just hired so as to let the elderly diva shine unperturbedly. The program was totally different on all three evenings!

In spring 1903, Virgo had already performed in Canada, as part of an enormous concert enterprise touring the entire country, bringing classical concerts to many remote places for the very first time in history ("Cycle of Musical Festivals of the Dominion of Canada").

Reference 1; reference 2: Gesellschaft für historische Tonträger, Wien; reference 3; reference 4; reference 5; reference 6
Picture source: Otago Witness, 10 May 1911

Anton Bieber has contributed the recordings and label scans: thank you!