Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti (19 February 1843 – 27 September 1919) was a highly acclaimed 19th century opera diva, 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 sopranos 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.

Biography

She was born Adela Juana Maria Patti, 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.

Vocal development

Adelina Patti made her operatic debut at age 16 on 24 November 1859 in the title role of Donizetti'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 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.

Portrait by Franz Winterhalter (1862)

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, 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 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.")

Her financial acumen & 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 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.

Patti caricatured by the French artist André Gill (1840-1885).

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 One. She lived long enough to see the war end, dying in 1919 of natural causes.

Recordings

Patti cut more than 30 gramophone recordings 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 he 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).

Personal life

Adelina Patti

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.

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

Adelina Patti had a warm, crystalline, very clear, and very agile high soprano 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 staccatos 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 a exceptional virtuosity. Her chromatics scales was deliciously sweet, and her trill was wonderful and solid."

Citations and homages

Adelina Patti is evoked in numerous works of literature and music among which are:

• La Vie parisienne by Jacques Offenbach, book by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, (1866):

"Je veux, moi, dans la capitale

Voir les divas qui font fureur

Voir la Patti dans Don Pasquale

Et Thérésa dans le Sapeur"

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Nana by Émile Zola
• Boroña by Leopoldo Alas
• The Village in the Treetops by Jules Verne

References

• Cone, Frederick (2003). Adelina Patti: Queen of Hearts. New York: Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0931340608.
• Klein, Herman (1977). Andrea Hicks (ed.). The Reign of Patti. Opera Biographies. New York: Arno Press. ISBN 0405096860.
• Mapleson, James Henry (1966). Harold Rosenthal (ed.). The Mapleson Memoirs; The Career of an Operatic Impresario, 1858-1888. New York: Appleton-Century. ISBN 0370000803.
• Scott, Michael. The Record of Singing to 1914. Duckworth. ISBN 0715610309. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |London, date= ignored (help)
• Stanley Sadie, ed. (1997). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. New York, New York: Macmillian Reference Limited. p. 918. ISBN 0333734327.

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.