Adelina Patti was the most highly-paid soprano of her time. She was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1843, but her parents, who were both singers, took her to New York as a child. There she gave her first concert in 1850, aged seven, and made her operatic début as Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor in 1859, aged sixteen.
During a long career, she appeared regularly in London and Paris, and occasionally in Italy and America. She was engaged for twenty-five consecutive seasons at Covent Garden, where she sang some thirty roles in works by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Gounod and Meyerbeer.
She received two hundred guineas a performance at Covent Garden, and five thousand dollars in the US. She also had clauses in her contract excusing her from rehearsal and stipulating the size in which her name was to appear on posters. Such clauses, though not unheard of today, were remarkable then.
Essentially a coloratura soprano, she also sang many lyric r├┤les, such as Leonora in Il Trovatore, and even dramatic ones, such as Aida (both by Verdi). Her voice, which was astonishingly even and flexible, ranged from c to f sharp and was unrivaled for purity of tone.
Unfortunately, she was one of those singers with a penchant for farewell performances, and was heard by many audiences when she was well past her best. In her prime, however, she was recognised as the possessor of a naturally beautiful voice, which had been perfectly trained. She died in Wales in 1919, in a castle bought with the proceeds of her long and lucrative career.
