Adelina Patti was one of the most highly regarded opera singers of the 19th century.
Considered, along with fellow contemporaries; Jenny Lind and Christina Nilsson, to be one of the most famous 19th Century sopranos; Giuseppe Verdi was not alone in calling her the greatest singer he ever heard.Patti was born Adela Juana Maria Patti to Italian parents working in Madrid, Spain. Her father was Sicilian and so Patti was born a subject of the King of the Two Sicilies. She later carried a French passport, as her two first husbands were French. Like many great singers, she came from a singing family. Both her parents, tenor Salvatore Patti and soprano Caterina Barilli, were singers. Her sisters Carlotta and Amalia were also singers. In her childhood the family moved to New York City: Patti grew up in The Bronx, where her family's home is still standing. Patti sang professionally from childhood, and developed into a coloratura soprano. It is believed that Patti learned much of her singing technique from her brother in law Maurice Strakosch, although later in life Patti, like many famous singers, claimed that she was entirely self-taught.In 1861, at the age of eighteen, she was invited to Covent Garden, to take the soprano rôle of Amina in Bellini's La Sonnambula. She had such success that she bought a house in Clapham and, using London as a base, went on to conquer the continent, performing Amina in Paris and Vienna in subsequent years with equal éclat.
In 1862 she sang Bishop's Home, Sweet Home at the White House for Abraham and Mary Lincoln, who were mourning for their son Willie, who had died of typhoid. The Lincolns were moved to tears and requested an encore. This song would became associated with Adelina Patti and she performed it many times as an encore by popular request.
Patti's career was success after success. She sang in the United States, all over Europe, including very much Russia and in South America, inspiring popular frenzy and critical raves wherever she went. Her girlish good looks made her an appealing stage presence. In her prime she reportedly had a beautiful soprano voice of birdlike purity, and she excelled in both soubrette roles like Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Rosina in Barber of Seville and famous coloratura parts like Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula, as well as lyric roles in Gounod's Faust and Romeo et Juliette.
Patti was known as a somewhat unadventurous singer, whose concert programs invariably consisted of the same old tunes, especially "Home Sweet Home", sung to adoring audiences. However, she was an effective actress in lyric rôles that called for deep emotions, like Gilda in Rigoletto, Leonora in Il Trovatore, Semiramide, and Violetta in La Traviata. As her voice matured, she took on heavier parts in operas like L'Africaine, Les Huguenots, and Aïda. Overall, though perhaps unadventurous and old-fashioned, (she sang no Verismo parts at all) her repertoire was quite large and varied.
It is said that, when she performed an aria from The Barber of Seville in front of its composer, Gioacchino Rossini, adding her own embellishments, Rossini applauded with the words, "That was wonderful - who wrote it?"
In her retirement, Adelina Patti, baroness Cederström, settled in the Swansea valley in south Wales, where she purchased Craig-y-Nos Castle. She 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 Pavillion. She died at Craig-y-Nos and was buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
wikipedia.org
Adelina Patti on opera-singer.co.uk
