Adelina Patti
Encyclopedia
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera
singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914. Along with her near contemporaries Jenny Lind
and Thérèse Tietjens, Patti remains one of the most famous soprano
s in history due to the purity and beauty of her lyrical voice and the unmatched quality of her bel canto
technique.
The composer Giuseppe Verdi
, writing in 1877, described her as being perhaps the finest singer who had ever lived and a "stupendous artist". (See J.F. Cone's biography Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts; Amadeus Press, Portland, US, 1993.) Verdi's admiration for Patti's talent was shared by numerous music critics and social commentators of her era.
, the last child of tenor
Salvatore Patti (1800–1869) and soprano
Caterina Barilli (died 1870). Her Italian parents were working in Madrid
, Spain, at the time of her birth. Because her father came from Sicily
, Patti was born a subject of the King of the Two Sicilies
. She later carried a French passport, as her first two husbands were French.
Her sisters Amalia and Carlotta Patti
were also singers. In her childhood, the family moved to New York City. Patti grew up in the Wakefield
section of the Bronx
, where her family's home is still standing. Patti sang professionally from childhood, and developed into a coloratura
soprano
with perfectly equalized vocal registers and a surprisingly warm, satiny tone. It is believed that Patti learned much of her singing technique from her brother-in-law Maurice Strakosch
, who was a musician and impresario. Later in life Patti, like many famous singers with sizable egos, claimed that she was entirely self-taught.
's Lucia di Lammermoor
at the Academy of Music, New York. On 24 August 1860, she and Emma Albani
were soloists in the world premiere of Charles Wugk Sabatier
's Cantata in Montreal which was performed in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales
. In 1861, at the age of 18, she was invited to Covent Garden
, to execute the role of Amina in Bellini
's La sonnambula
. She had such remarkable success at Covent Garden that season, she bought a house in Clapham
and, using London as a base, went on to conquer the European continent, performing Amina in Paris and Vienna in subsequent years with equal success.
Then, in 1862, during an American tour, she sang John Howard Payne
's Home, Sweet Home at the White House
for the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln
, and his wife, Mary Lincoln
. The Lincolns were mourning their son Willie
, who had died of typhoid. Moved to tears, the Lincolns requested an encore
of the song. Henceforth, it would become associated with Adelina Patti, and she performed it many times as a bonus item at the end of recitals and concerts.
Patti's career was one of success after success. She sang not only in England and the United States, but also as far afield in mainland Europe as Russia, and in South America as well, inspiring audience frenzy and critical superlatives wherever she went. Her girlish good looks gave her an appealing stage presence, which added to her celebrity status.
During the 1860s, Patti possessed a sweet, high-lying voice of birdlike purity and remarkable flexibility which was ideal for such parts as Zerlina, Lucia and Amina; but, as Verdi noted in 1878, her lower notes gained fullness and beauty when she grew older, enabling her to excel in weightier fare. Patti, however, turned into a conservative singer in the final phase of her operatic and concert career. She knew what suited her aging voice to perfection and she stuck to it. Typically, her recital programs during the 1890s featured an array of familiar, often sentimental, not-too-demanding popular tunes of the day, which were sure to appeal to her adoring fans.
But during her mature prime in the 1870s and '80s, Patti had been a more enterprising singer, proving to be an effective actress in those lyric roles that required the summoning forth of deep emotions, such as Gilda in Rigoletto
, Leonora in Il trovatore
, the title part in Semiramide
, Zerlina in Don Giovanni
and Violetta in La traviata
. She also had been prepared to tackle quite dramatic parts in operas like L'Africaine
, Les Huguenots
and even Aida
. She never attempted to sing any verismo
parts, however, because these became popular only in the twilight of her career, during the final decade of the 19th century.
Many years earlier, Patti had experienced an amusing encounter in Paris with the bel canto-opera composer Gioachino Rossini, who was a staunch upholder of traditional Italian singing values. It is related that when Patti's mentor (and brother-in-law), Strakosch, presented her to Rossini at one of his fashionable receptions during the 1860s, she was prevailed upon to sing "Una voce poco fa", from Rossini's The Barber of Seville—with embellishments added by Strakosch to show off the soprano's voice. "What composition was that?", asked the prickly Rossini. "Why, maestro, your own" replied Strakosch. "Oh no, that is not my composition, that is Strakoschonnerie", Rossini retorted. ('Cochonnerie' is a strong French idiom
indicating
"garbage" and literally
meaning "that which is characteristic of or fit for pigs.")
In his memoirs, the famous opera promoter "Colonel" Mapleson
recalled Patti's stubborn personality and sharp business sense. She reportedly had a parrot whom she had trained to shriek, "CASH! CASH!" whenever Mapleson walked in the room. Patti enjoyed the trappings of fame and wealth but she was not profligate with her earnings, especially after losing a large proportion of her assets as a result of the break-up of her first marriage (see below). She invested wisely large sums of money and unlike some of her extravagant former colleagues, such as the star tenor Giovanni Mario, who died in penury, she saw out her days amid luxurious surroundings.
In 1893, Patti created the title role of Gabriella in a now-forgotten opera by Emilio Pizzi
at its world premiere in Boston. Patti had commissioned Pizzi to write the opera for her.
Ten years later, she undertook one final singing tour of the United States; but it turned out to be a critical, financial and personal failure due to the deterioration of her voice through age and wear and tear. From then on she restricted herself to the occasional concert here or there, or to private performances mounted at a little theater she had built in her impressive residence, Craig-y-Nos Castle
in Wales
. She last sang in public in October 1914, taking part in a Red Cross concert at London's Royal Albert Hall
that had been organized to aid victims of World War I. She lived long enough to see the war end, dying in 1919 of natural causes.
ings of songs and operatic arias (some of them duplicates) — plus one spoken voice recording (a New Year's greeting to her third husband, which she intended him to keep as a memento) — at her Welsh home in 1905 and 1906. By then she was aged in her 60s, with her voice well past its prime after a busy operatic career stretching all the way back to 1859.
Nonetheless, the limpid purity of her tone and the smoothness of her legato line remained uniquely impressive, compensating to some extent for the weakening of her breath control. The records also display a lively singing personality as well as a surprisingly strong chest voice and a mellow timbre. Her trill remains wonderfully fluent and accurate and her diction is excellent. Overall her discs have a charm and musicality that give us a hint of why, at her peak, she commanded $5,000 a night.
Patti's recorded legacy included a number of songs and arias from the following operas: Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni
, Faust
, Martha
, Norma
, Mignon
and La sonnambula
.
The records were produced by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company (the foreunner of HMV
). Patti's piano accompanist, Landon Ronald
, wrote thus of his first recording session with the diva, "When the little (gramophone) trumpet gave forth the beautiful tones, she went into ecstasies! She threw kisses into the trumpet and kept on saying, 'Ah! Mon Dieu! Maintenant je comprends pourquoi je suis Patti! Oh oui! Quelle voix! Quelle artiste! Je comprends tout!' [Ah! My Lord! Now I understand why I am Patti! Oh yes! What a voice! What an artist! I understand everything!] Her enthusiasm was so naïve and genuine that the fact that she was praising her own voice seemed to us all to be right and proper."
Thirty-two Patti recordings were reissued on CD in 1998 by Marston Records (catalogue number 52011-2).
Patti's personal life was not as successful as her professional life but it was not as disastrous as that of many operatic singers. She is thought by some to have had a dalliance with the tenor Mario
, who is said to have bragged at Patti's first wedding that he had already "made love to her many times".
Engaged as a minor to Henri de Lossy, Baron of Ville, Patti wed three times: first, in 1868, to Henri de Roger de Cahusac, Marquess of Caux (1826–1889). The marriage soon collapsed; both had affairs and de Caux was granted a legal separation in 1877 and divorced in 1885. The union was dissolved with bitterness and cost her half her fortune.
She then lived with the French tenor Ernesto Nicolini
(1834–1898) for many years until, following her divorce from Caux, she was able to marry him in 1886. That marriage lasted until his death and was seemingly happy, but Nicolini cut Patti out of his will, suggesting some tension in the last years.
Patti's last marriage, in 1899, was to Baron Rolf Cederström (1870–1947), a priggish, but handsome, Swedish aristocrat many years her junior. The Baron severely curtailed Patti's social life. He cut down her domestic staff from 40 to 18, but gave her the devotion and flattery that she needed, becoming her sole legatee. After her death, he married a much younger woman. Their only daughter, Brita Yvonne Cederström (born 1924), ended up as Patti's sole heir. Patti had no children, but was close to her nieces and nephews. The Tony Award
-winning Broadway actress and singer Patti LuPone
is a great-grand niece and namesake. Drummer Scott Devours
is her 3rd great nephew.
In her retirement, Patti, now officially Baroness Cederström, settled in the Swansea valley
in south Wales
, where she purchased Craig-y-Nos Castle
. There she had her own private theatre, a miniature version of the one at Bayreuth, and made her gramophone recordings.
The ghost of Patti is said to haunt the castle, and her disembodied voice is reputed to have been heard in its theatre. On one occasion, a media crew was recording an interview at the castle, and while in the kitchen, they were discussing the fact that Patti had never mastered the role of Carmen ... when, suddenly, a heavy saucepan flew on to the floor, reportedly without human intervention. The saucepan had been on a large cooker, away from the edge.
Patti also funded the substantial station building at Craig y Nos/Penwyllt
on the Neath and Brecon Railway
. In 1918, she presented the Winter Garden building from her Craig-y-Nos estate to the city of Swansea
. It was re-erected and renamed the Patti Pavilion. She died at Craig-y-Nos and eight months later was buried near her father at the Père Lachaise Cemetery
in Paris.
voice
. Her vocal emission was of perfect equality and her vocal range
was wide, from low C to high F (C4 - F6). Regarding her technique, critic Rodolfo Celletti
said, "Her voice was a technical marvel. The staccato
s were marvels of accuracy, even in the trickiest intervals, her legato
was impressively smooth and pure; she connects the voice from note to note, phrase to phrase, lifting and gliding with an exceptional virtuosity. Her chromatic scale was deliciously sweet, and her trill
was wonderful and solid."
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914. Along with her near contemporaries Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
and Thérèse Tietjens, Patti remains one of the most famous soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
s in history due to the purity and beauty of her lyrical voice and the unmatched quality of her bel canto
Bel canto
Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
technique.
The composer Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, writing in 1877, described her as being perhaps the finest singer who had ever lived and a "stupendous artist". (See J.F. Cone's biography Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts; Amadeus Press, Portland, US, 1993.) Verdi's admiration for Patti's talent was shared by numerous music critics and social commentators of her era.
Biography
She was born Adela Juana Maria Patti, in MadridMadrid
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...
, the last child of tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Salvatore Patti (1800–1869) and soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
Caterina Barilli (died 1870). Her Italian parents were working in 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...
, Spain, at the time of her birth. Because her father came from Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Patti was born a subject of the King of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
. She later carried a French passport, as her first two husbands were French.
Her sisters Amalia and Carlotta Patti
Carlotta Patti
Carlotta Patti was a nineteenth century operatic soprano and sister to famed soprano Adelina Patti. Various sources list her birth year as 1835, 1840, and 1842. Born into a musical family, Patti studied the piano in her youth before following her younger sister's inclination toward singing...
were also singers. In her childhood, the family moved to New York City. Patti grew up in the Wakefield
Wakefield, Bronx
Wakefield is a working-class section of the northern borough of the Bronx in New York City, bounded by the New York city line with Westchester County or 243rd street to the north,and 222nd Street to the south, and the Bronx River, Bronx River Parkway and Metro-North Railroad tracks to the west...
section of the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, where her family's home is still standing. Patti sang professionally from childhood, and developed into a coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
with perfectly equalized vocal registers and a surprisingly warm, satiny tone. It is believed that Patti learned much of her singing technique from her brother-in-law Maurice Strakosch
Maurice Strakosch
Maurice Strakosch was an American musician and impresario of Czech origin.-Biography:Strakosch was born in Gross-Seelowitz , Moravia. He made his debut as a pianist at the age of 11 in Brno performing a piano concerto by Hummel...
, who was a musician and impresario. Later in life Patti, like many famous singers with sizable egos, claimed that she was entirely self-taught.
Vocal development
Adelina Patti made her operatic debut at age 16 on 24 November 1859 in the title role of DonizettiGaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
at the Academy of Music, New York. On 24 August 1860, she and Emma Albani
Emma Albani
Dame Emma Albani DBE was a leading soprano of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the first Canadian singer to become an international star. Her repertoire focused on the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Wagner...
were soloists in the world premiere of Charles Wugk Sabatier
Charles Wugk Sabatier
Charles-Désiré-Joseph Wugk Sabatier was a Canadian pianist, organist, composer, and music educator of French birth.-Early life and career in Europe:...
's Cantata in Montreal which was performed in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
. In 1861, at the age of 18, she was invited to Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, to execute the role of Amina in Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
. She had such remarkable success at Covent Garden that season, she bought a house in Clapham
Clapham
Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...
and, using London as a base, went on to conquer the European continent, performing Amina in Paris and Vienna in subsequent years with equal success.
Then, in 1862, during an American tour, she sang John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne was an American actor, poet, playwright, and author who had most of his theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of "Home! Sweet Home!", a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States, Great Britain, and the...
's Home, Sweet Home at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
for the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, and his wife, Mary Lincoln
Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Lincoln was the wife of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and was First Lady of the United States from 1861 to 1865.-Life before the White House:...
. The Lincolns were mourning their son Willie
William Wallace Lincoln
William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln was the third son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He died at the age of 11. He was named after Mary's brother-in-law Dr. William Wallace.- Final illness and death :...
, who had died of typhoid. Moved to tears, the Lincolns requested an encore
Encore (concert)
An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...
of the song. Henceforth, it would become associated with Adelina Patti, and she performed it many times as a bonus item at the end of recitals and concerts.
During the 1860s, Patti possessed a sweet, high-lying voice of birdlike purity and remarkable flexibility which was ideal for such parts as Zerlina, Lucia and Amina; but, as Verdi noted in 1878, her lower notes gained fullness and beauty when she grew older, enabling her to excel in weightier fare. Patti, however, turned into a conservative singer in the final phase of her operatic and concert career. She knew what suited her aging voice to perfection and she stuck to it. Typically, her recital programs during the 1890s featured an array of familiar, often sentimental, not-too-demanding popular tunes of the day, which were sure to appeal to her adoring fans.
But during her mature prime in the 1870s and '80s, Patti had been a more enterprising singer, proving to be an effective actress in those lyric roles that required the summoning forth of deep emotions, such as Gilda in Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Leonora in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, the title part in Semiramide
Semiramide
Semiramide is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini.The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Babylon...
, Zerlina in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
and Violetta in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
. She also had been prepared to tackle quite dramatic parts in operas like L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
, Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
and even Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
. She never attempted to sing any verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
parts, however, because these became popular only in the twilight of her career, during the final decade of the 19th century.
Many years earlier, Patti had experienced an amusing encounter in Paris with the bel canto-opera composer Gioachino Rossini, who was a staunch upholder of traditional Italian singing values. It is related that when Patti's mentor (and brother-in-law), Strakosch, presented her to Rossini at one of his fashionable receptions during the 1860s, she was prevailed upon to sing "Una voce poco fa", from Rossini's The Barber of Seville—with embellishments added by Strakosch to show off the soprano's voice. "What composition was that?", asked the prickly Rossini. "Why, maestro, your own" replied Strakosch. "Oh no, that is not my composition, that is Strakoschonnerie", Rossini retorted. ('Cochonnerie' is a strong French idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
indicating
Literal and figurative language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component...
"garbage" and literally
Literal and figurative language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component...
meaning "that which is characteristic of or fit for pigs.")
Financial acumen and retirement
In her prime, Patti demanded to be paid $5000 a night, in gold, before the performance. Her contracts stipulated that her name be top-billed and printed larger than any other name in the cast. Her contracts also insisted that while she was "free to attend all rehearsals, she was not obligated to attend any".In his memoirs, the famous opera promoter "Colonel" Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson was an English opera impresario, probably the leading figure instrumental in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York City in the second half of the 19th century.-Life and career:Mapleson was born in London, England...
recalled Patti's stubborn personality and sharp business sense. She reportedly had a parrot whom she had trained to shriek, "CASH! CASH!" whenever Mapleson walked in the room. Patti enjoyed the trappings of fame and wealth but she was not profligate with her earnings, especially after losing a large proportion of her assets as a result of the break-up of her first marriage (see below). She invested wisely large sums of money and unlike some of her extravagant former colleagues, such as the star tenor Giovanni Mario, who died in penury, she saw out her days amid luxurious surroundings.
Emilio Pizzi
Emilio Pizzi was an Italian composer. His output of works include 10 operas, a ballet, an oratorio, and numerous vocal and chamber works....
at its world premiere in Boston. Patti had commissioned Pizzi to write the opera for her.
Ten years later, she undertook one final singing tour of the United States; but it turned out to be a critical, financial and personal failure due to the deterioration of her voice through age and wear and tear. From then on she restricted herself to the occasional concert here or there, or to private performances mounted at a little theater she had built in her impressive residence, Craig-y-Nos Castle
Craig-y-Nos Castle
Craig-y-Nos Castle , is a Victorian-Gothic country house in Britain. Built on parkland beside the River Tawe in the upper Swansea Valley, it is located on the southern edge of Fforest Fawr in Powys. The former estate of opera singer Adelina Patti, part of the complex is now used as a boutique...
in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. She last sang in public in October 1914, taking part in a Red Cross concert at London's Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
that had been organized to aid victims of World War I. She lived long enough to see the war end, dying in 1919 of natural causes.
Recordings
Patti cut more than 30 gramophone recordGramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
ings of songs and operatic arias (some of them duplicates) — plus one spoken voice recording (a New Year's greeting to her third husband, which she intended him to keep as a memento) — at her Welsh home in 1905 and 1906. By then she was aged in her 60s, with her voice well past its prime after a busy operatic career stretching all the way back to 1859.
Nonetheless, the limpid purity of her tone and the smoothness of her legato line remained uniquely impressive, compensating to some extent for the weakening of her breath control. The records also display a lively singing personality as well as a surprisingly strong chest voice and a mellow timbre. Her trill remains wonderfully fluent and accurate and her diction is excellent. Overall her discs have a charm and musicality that give us a hint of why, at her peak, she commanded $5,000 a night.
Patti's recorded legacy included a number of songs and arias from the following operas: Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
, Martha
Martha
Martha of Bethany is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem...
, Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, Mignon
Mignon
Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's The Dead,...
and La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
.
The records were produced by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company (the foreunner of HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
). Patti's piano accompanist, Landon Ronald
Landon Ronald
Sir Landon Ronald was an English conductor, composer, pianist, singing teacher and administrator...
, wrote thus of his first recording session with the diva, "When the little (gramophone) trumpet gave forth the beautiful tones, she went into ecstasies! She threw kisses into the trumpet and kept on saying, 'Ah! Mon Dieu! Maintenant je comprends pourquoi je suis Patti! Oh oui! Quelle voix! Quelle artiste! Je comprends tout!' [Ah! My Lord! Now I understand why I am Patti! Oh yes! What a voice! What an artist! I understand everything!] Her enthusiasm was so naïve and genuine that the fact that she was praising her own voice seemed to us all to be right and proper."
Thirty-two Patti recordings were reissued on CD in 1998 by Marston Records (catalogue number 52011-2).
Personal life
Mario (tenor)
Giovanni Matteo "Mario" was an Italian opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London.-Early life:...
, who is said to have bragged at Patti's first wedding that he had already "made love to her many times".
Engaged as a minor to Henri de Lossy, Baron of Ville, Patti wed three times: first, in 1868, to Henri de Roger de Cahusac, Marquess of Caux (1826–1889). The marriage soon collapsed; both had affairs and de Caux was granted a legal separation in 1877 and divorced in 1885. The union was dissolved with bitterness and cost her half her fortune.
She then lived with the French tenor Ernesto Nicolini
Ernesto Nicolini
Ernesto Nicolini was a French operatic tenor, particularly associated with the French and Italian repertories....
(1834–1898) for many years until, following her divorce from Caux, she was able to marry him in 1886. That marriage lasted until his death and was seemingly happy, but Nicolini cut Patti out of his will, suggesting some tension in the last years.
Patti's last marriage, in 1899, was to Baron Rolf Cederström (1870–1947), a priggish, but handsome, Swedish aristocrat many years her junior. The Baron severely curtailed Patti's social life. He cut down her domestic staff from 40 to 18, but gave her the devotion and flattery that she needed, becoming her sole legatee. After her death, he married a much younger woman. Their only daughter, Brita Yvonne Cederström (born 1924), ended up as Patti's sole heir. Patti had no children, but was close to her nieces and nephews. The Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning Broadway actress and singer Patti LuPone
Patti LuPone
Patti Ann LuPone is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performances as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical Evita and as Madame Rose in the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of Les...
is a great-grand niece and namesake. Drummer Scott Devours
Scott Devours
Scott Devours is an American drummer and songwriter based in Long Beach, California. Devours has played drums for the post-grunge bands Oleander and IMA Robot, worked on over thirty albums and toured with a number of well-known artists....
is her 3rd great nephew.
In her retirement, Patti, now officially Baroness Cederström, settled in the Swansea valley
River Tawe
The River Tawe is a river in South Wales. It flows in a principally south-westerly direction for some from its source below Moel Feity in the Old Red Sandstone hills of the western Brecon Beacons to the Bristol Channel at Swansea. Its main tributaries are the right bank Upper and Lower Clydach...
in south Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, where she purchased Craig-y-Nos Castle
Craig-y-Nos Castle
Craig-y-Nos Castle , is a Victorian-Gothic country house in Britain. Built on parkland beside the River Tawe in the upper Swansea Valley, it is located on the southern edge of Fforest Fawr in Powys. The former estate of opera singer Adelina Patti, part of the complex is now used as a boutique...
. There she had her own private theatre, a miniature version of the one at Bayreuth, and made her gramophone recordings.
The ghost of Patti is said to haunt the castle, and her disembodied voice is reputed to have been heard in its theatre. On one occasion, a media crew was recording an interview at the castle, and while in the kitchen, they were discussing the fact that Patti had never mastered the role of Carmen ... when, suddenly, a heavy saucepan flew on to the floor, reportedly without human intervention. The saucepan had been on a large cooker, away from the edge.
Patti also funded the substantial station building at Craig y Nos/Penwyllt
Penwyllt
Penwyllt is a Welsh hamlet located in the upper Swansea Valley, to the east of the Black Mountain.A former quarrying village, quicklime and silica brick production centre, its fortunes rose and fell as a result of the industrial revolution within South Wales...
on the Neath and Brecon Railway
Neath and Brecon Railway
The Neath and Brecon Railway linked the Vale of Neath Railway at Neath with the Brecon and Merthyr Railway at Brecon and also via a connection from Colbren Junction, it linked to the Swansea Vale Railway at Ynysygeinon Junction ....
. In 1918, she presented the Winter Garden building from her Craig-y-Nos estate to the city of Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
. It was re-erected and renamed the Patti Pavilion. She died at Craig-y-Nos and eight months later was buried near her father at the Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
in Paris.
Voice
Adelina Patti had a warm, crystalline, and very agile high sopranoColoratura soprano
A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano who specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs and leaps. The term coloratura refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody, which is a typical component of the music written for this voice...
voice
Voice
Voice may refer to:* Human voice* Voice control or voice activation* Writer's voice* Voice acting* Voice vote* Voice message-In film:* Voice , a 2005 South Korean film* The Voice , a 2010 Turkish horror film directed by Ümit Ünal...
. Her vocal emission was of perfect equality and her vocal range
Vocal range
Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...
was wide, from low C to high F (C4 - F6). Regarding her technique, critic Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti
Rodolfo Celletti was an Italian musicologist, critic, voice teacher, and novelist. Considered one of the leading scholars of the operatic voice and the history of operatic performance, he published many books and articles on the subject as well as several novels.-Biography:Rodolfo Celletti was...
said, "Her voice was a technical marvel. The staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
s were marvels of accuracy, even in the trickiest intervals, her legato
Legato
In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...
was impressively smooth and pure; she connects the voice from note to note, phrase to phrase, lifting and gliding with an exceptional virtuosity. Her chromatic scale was deliciously sweet, and her trill
Trill (music)
The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill....
was wonderful and solid."
Citations and homages
Adelina Patti is evoked in numerous works of literature and music among which are:- La Vie parisienneLa vie parisienneLa vie parisienne is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.This work was Offenbach's first full-length piece to portray contemporary Parisian life, unlike his earlier period pieces and mythological subjects...
by Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
, book by Henri MeilhacHenri MeilhacHenri Meilhac , was a French dramatist and opera librettist.-Biography:Meilhac was born in Paris in 1831. As a young man, he began writing fanciful articles for Parisian newspapers and vaudevilles, in a vivacious boulevardier spirit which brought him to the forefront...
and Ludovic HalévyLudovic HalévyLudovic Halévy was a French author and playwright. He was half Jewish : his Jewish father had converted to Christianity prior to his birth, to marry his mother, née Alexandrine Lebas.-Biography:Ludovic Halévy was born in Paris...
, (1866):
- "Je veux, moi, dans la capitale
- Voir les divas qui font fureur
- Voir la Patti dans Don PasqualeDon PasqualeDon Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
- Et Thérésa dans le Sapeur"
- The Picture of Dorian GrayThe Picture of Dorian GrayThe Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine...
by Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s... - NanaNana (novel)Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
by Émile ZolaÉmile ZolaÉmile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism... - Boroña by Leopoldo Alas
- The Village in the TreetopsThe Village in the TreetopsThe Village in the Treetops is a 1901 novel by Jules Verne. The book, one of Verne's "Voyages Extraordinaires", is his take on Darwinism and human development.-References:...
by Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
External links
- Adelina Patti on opera-singer.co.uk
- Biography on BBC Wales
- A digital collection of items relating to Adelina Patti
- Adelina Patti as Juliet (1878), one of many Patti-related documents housed in the Alfredo Barili Papers at the Georgia Archives.