Patti, ADELINA,

Patti, ADELINA, prima-donna, was born at Madrid, 19th February 1843, the daughter of a Sicilian tenor and the 'Signora Barilli,' a Roman. At seven she sang 'Casta Diva' in Tripler Hall, New York; and in the same city she made her operatic début as 'Lucia' in 1859. In London she first appeared in 1861 as 'Amina' in La Sonnambula, when her success was as splendid as it had been in America, and as it since has been wherever she has sung—Paris, St Petersburg, both the Americas, &c. In Russia, in 1870, she received from the emperor the Order of Merit. Her voice is an unusually high soprano, reaching to F in alt, of rich bell-like tone and remarkable evenness; to these qualities she adds purity of style and the highest artistic finish. Equally at home in the tenderness of deep passion and the sprightly vivacity of comedy, she has also sung splendidly in oratorio. She married in 1866 the Marquis de Caux, in 1886 the tenor Ernesto Nicolini, and in 1899 the Baron Rolf Cederström. Her home is Craig-y-nos Castle, near Swansea.—Her elder sister, CARLOTTA, born at Florence in 1840, was likewise a very fine vocalist, though a slight lameness prevented her from appearing much in opera. She made her début at New York as a concert-singer in 1861, married in 1879 the cellist Ernst de Munck, and died at Paris, 28th June 1889. See Engel's From Mozart to Mario (1886).