Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti Performer - Born 10 February 1843 - Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Died 27 September 1919 - Craig-y-nos, Abercrave Wales UK

Married 1) Henri de Roger de Cahusac, the Marquis de Caux; 2) Ernest Nicolini; 3) Baron Rolf Cederstrom

Sisters Carlotta and Amelia were also singers.

Adelina Patti (10 February 1843 – 27 September 1919) was an Italian-French 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 sopranos in history, owing 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". Verdi's admiration for Patti's talent was shared by numerous music critics and social commentators of her era.

Personal life Adelina Patti 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 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 two-time Tony Award-winning Broadway actress and singer Patti LuPone is a great-grand niece and namesake. Drummer Scott Devours is her 3rd great nephew. The Welsh opera singer Lisa Lee Dark is her 4th great-grand niece through her marriage to the French tenor Ernesto Nicolini.

Patti developed a love for billiards and became a reputable player, making guest appearances at many major billiard events for exhibition matches and fancy shot displays.

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 a $2000 billiard table installed, and her own private theatre, a miniature version of the one at Bayreuth, and made her gramophone recordings.

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 at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris to be close to her Father and favourite composer Rossini in accordance with the wishes in her will.

Adelina Patti was born Adela Juana Maria Patti in Madrid, Spain, on 10th February, 1843 (not 19th as often quoted - see*). Her father, Salvatore Patti, was a Sicilian who hailed from a noble family and was an accomplished operatic tenor. Her mother, Caterina Chiesa, was a celebrated Italian operatic soprano under the professional name of Signora Barilli (her name from a previous manager) - a hard working woman who delivered Adelina within hours of leaving the stage of the Royal Opera House, Madrid - barely reaching the family lodgings at the end of her performance before the new addition to the family arrived. And what a family to be born into; as well as her parents, elder sisters Amalia and Carlotta, half-brothers Ettore, Antonio and Nicolo (Barili), and half-sister Clotilda (Barili) were all vocalists. Indeed it was Ettore, the elder of her half-brothers, who become her first, and by her own account, most influential singing teacher.

• Book of Baptisms, No. 42, page 153. - In the City of Madrid, Province of the same name, on April 8, 1843, I, Don Josef Losada, Vicar of the Parish of St. Louis, solemnly baptized a girl, born at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 10th February of the current year, the legitimate daughter of Salvatore Patti, professor of music, born at Catania, in Sicily, and of Caterina Chiesa, born in Rome. The paternal Grandparents were Pietro Patti and Concepcion Marino, and the maternal were John Chiesa, born at Venice, and Louise Caselli, born at Marino, in the Pontifical States.

Translation from Baptismal register - As published in "THE REIGN OF PATTI", by Herman Klein

Whilst Adelina was still an infant her parents, fallen upon hard times in Europe, emigrated to America where there were better opportunities for a show-business family. Her father became a manager of the Old Italian Opera House in New York, one of the cradles of Grand Opera on that continent. Fortune did not favour her parents however, and by the time Adelina was seven they found themselves destitute. But, in Adelina, her mother realised that they had a prodigious and marketable vocal talent. And so they put Adelina on the concert curcuit to win bread for the family. She made her debut at the Tripler Hall in New York singing arias from 'The Barber of Seville', aged only seven. She was an instant success as this, as this press clipping from the following year indicates:

The programme included a fantasia from Lucia, and a portion of the Carnival of Venice, with two or three other pieces by Mr. Jaell, which were rendered with marvellous taste and delicacy. The piano-forte is a new instrument under his finished touch. Nor should the other musical wonder, the child Adelina Patti, be forgotten. A very successful imitation of the Echo Song of Jenny Lind Was vehemently encored - New York Daily Times 25th Nov, 1851.

Even as so young a child she developed a very distinct notion of her own worth and showed the beginnings of becoming an astute businesswoman. If her pay was to be used to support her family then little Adelina was determined to have some additional reward herself for her trouble. Whilst working for the celebrated pianist turned impresario Maurice Strakosch, who had married her elder sister Amalia, she would fix upon some kind of toy or present she desired before she would appear in public. On one evening in Cincinnatti Strakosch had forgotten to buy the doll little Addi had asked, for whereupon she stubbornly refused to take the stage. No entreaties to wait until morning for her reward would prevail upon her and Strakosch was forced to scour the local neighbourhood for the wanted item whilst Adelina sat serenely in the Green room and the audience waited impatiently. When Strakosch returned and threw the handsomest doll he had been able to find at the child's feet she lightly tripped out on stage without a further word being said and sent the audience into raptures.

At the age of twelve Adelina undertook a tour of Cuba and the Caribbean in the company of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the internationally famous pianist. By now she had become so successful that her voice was almost ruined through overwork. Consequently, at the height of her childish talents, she was withdrawn from the concert room to rest her voice and complete her vocal training. She made her full operatic debut at the age of sixteen at the New York Academy of Music on 24th November, 1859, singing Donizetti's 'Lucia di Lammermoor'. Again she was a tremendous success and during the following eighteen months she sang the heroines of all the most operas of Bellini and Donizetti and carried all before her.

Adelina made her European debut on 18th May, 1861. She had been engaged by E. T. Smith to appear at Her Majesty's Theatre but when financial difficulties removed that worthy from office, Strakosch took advantage of a better opportunity and to Frederic Gye, proprietor of the Royal Italian Opera House at Covent Garden, London, to sing "Amina" in his production of Bellini's 'Somnambula'. It was a big risk for Adelina, only just turned eighteen, to expose herself to a public that was at the time the most notoriously difficult to please in Europe. But please them she did, causing them to abandon their habitual reserve and give her a welcome marked by unprecedented and unbounded enthusiasm. She woke the next morning in her little hotel room overlooking the Thames to find herself famous and her reputation in England firmly assured.

During her first year in England this tireless girl of 18 sang at Covent Garden under contract for an average fee of £32 10s. a performance - a remarkable summer for one so young and still relatively untried. She was allowed only a brief summer holiday, singing in London 25 times in 6 operas over a period of 11 weeks. She was next engaged that summer at a fee of 500 guineas for just three concerts at the Birmingham Festival, and also sang in opera in Dublin and in numerous concerts in the provinces. In November she sang in Berlin, opening the first of what would become a regular series of European tours. The rapidity of her rise to stardom and the speed with which her fame spread was unprecedented. Her services were soon in demand in every capital across Europe, and the crowned heads of the Continent without exemption lavished applause and fine gifts and distinctions upon her. In just a few short years her remarkable voice had taken her to the top of her profession and made her the most celebrated soprano in the world. Throughout this period she was rarely alone, her father, brother-in-law, and German governess-chaperone Louise Lauwe, escorting her everywhere, rigidly supervising her academic studies and guarding her against overwork.

She purchased a house in London's Clapham as her main base of operations and in the following years travelled far and wide across Europe and the America's, drawing large audiences to see and hear her wherever she went. In 1862 she was invited to the White House where Abraham and Mary Lincoln were in mourning for their 11 year-old son William, who had recently died from Typhoid fever. One of the songs she sang on that ocassion was "Home Sweet Home", from the opera 'Clari' (or 'The Maid of Milan'), which would become very much associated with her name in subsequent years.

She became the darling of the French court and was received at the Tuileries by the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie. There she was introduced to Henri de Roger de Cahusac, the Marquis de Caux, Equerry to the Emeror, and it was at the urging of the Empress that herself that she was persuaded to accept him as her husband. The wedding was celebrated at the Roman Catholic Church on Clapham Common on July 29th, 1868, but from the start the marriage was not a happy one, and ended in considerable bitterness when the couple seperated in 1877. Adelina then became romantically involved with the opera singer Ernest Nicolini, who had partnered her in many duets. In 1878, she bought a large house, Craig-y-Nos, near Abercrave in the Breconshire hills of Wales, which she would call home for the remainder of her life. Nicolini took up residence there with her, although the couple were unable to marry for some years.

In 1881, by now the toast of virtually every major city in Europe, she returned to the USA, and from then until 1904 would make coast to coast tours there almost annually. She was by now one of the most famous women in the world, and certainly amongst the highest paid, able to write her own contracts and always demanding payment in advance. She was beloved the World over by people of all classes, from common chamber maids to heads of state.

During her period of residence at Craig-y-Nos Patti used her fortune to undertake numerous construction works, dramatically extending the residence and developing it into her very own castle where she lived in regal style and entertained lavishly many of the most noted people of the civilized world. These works she undertook at Craig-y-Nos included the building of new north and south wings, a winter garden, conservatory, clock tower and even the erection of a small theatre.

The Marquis de Caux finally agreed to a divorce in 1885 - after Patti agreed a substantial settlement, reputedly handing him half her considerable fortune. It was a huge sum since Patti had, almost from the start of her career, been able to command terms higher than virtually any other singer, and even after her expenditures on Craig-y-Nos she was still a considerably wealthy woman and her earning potential was such that even this loss must have been speedily recouped. And this did in fact lead to the happiest period of her life, as she was now free to marry Signor Nicolini, who seems to have been her true soul-mate. They were married on June 10th, 1886, in a civil ceremony at the residence of the Vice-consul for France at Swansea, in the presence of several distinguished witnesses. A religious ceremony was conducted in the small parish church of Ystradgynlais the following day. The couple were so devoted that for some years Madame Patti refused all engagements in which Nicolini was not included.

The couple continued to live at Craig-y-Nos where Patti immersed herself deeply in local community life, giving charity concerts even after she had largely retired from the operatic stage. She also sang in Welsh at the Eisteddfod in Brecon in 1889. Her staff at Crasig-y-Nos, which at one point numbered as many as seventy, were devoted to her and she was popular with the local community for her good works and the prosperity her presence brought. Even then there were some who sought to exploit her - some contractors attempted to inflate their bills knowing of her wealth, and one Belgian visitor who had been lavishly entertained at Craig-y-Nos for a number of days, during which time he was careful to insinuate himself into any discussions of a business nature, then had the temerity to send her an invoice for £3,000 for his services as her 'advisor'. But Patti was a shrewd and determined woman, not easily imposed upon, and the influence of the law generally put an end to such matters.

After Nicolini died in 1898, Adelina married again, for the third and last time, the following year. This time the groom was the Swedish born Baron Rolf Cederstrom, a naturalised Englishman some years her junior - she was nearly 56 on the eve of her third wedding, her groom was in his thirties - but she believed herself to be in love yet once again. Cederstrom appears to have been sincere in his relationship with Patti, but he was an austere man who put something of a curb on his wife's spending and socialising. Consequently, her life underwent a significant change, Craig-y-Nos Castle saw little of it's former gaiety and most of her old friends became seperated from her.

Adelina continued to give concerts until beyond her sixtieth birthday, although by then she was noticeably past her prime - her health was deteriorating and the robust constitution that had always sustained her was last to beginning to give way. Her last tour of the USA in 1903/04, the last of many 'farewell' tours there, was particularly disappointing, despite adding, according to official figures, a net total of 50,000 to her coffers. After concluding that tour she went into virtual retirement, giving only the occasional concert here or there, or infrequent private performances in her own little theater. By then, her career as a performer had been without parallel either for length or for brilliancy and had left her well provided for financially. She made her last appearance in public (then in her 72nd year) a concert given at the Albert Hall in aid of the Red Cross War Fund on October 20th, 1914.

In 1918, she donated the Winter Garden building to the city of Swansea, and it was dismantled and re-erected overlooking Swansea Bay, where it remains to this day as the 'Patti Pavilion' and fittingly is used as a performance space. Adelina spent the last years of her life enjoying the tranquility at Craig-y-Nos, where she died from heart failure following a long illness on 27th September, 1919 - she was aged 76. Her remains were taken to France where she was buried at the P�re Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Although known as a somewhat unadventurous singer, rarely straying from the same old set of established favourites, particularly "Home Sweet Home", which she never-the-less sang to doting audiences. But, in her youth especially, she sang with a sweet soprano that was birdlike in it's lyrical clarity. In business she was a shrewd operator, driving hard bargains in all her contracts and, once she had made her name, always insisting on money up front. Unfortunately, the only recordings ever made of Madame Patti were made late in her career when she was already long past her prime.

At the height of her career she was the most celebrated, and certainly the highest paid, vocalist in the world, guaranteed to fill houses wherever she appeared. In England she travelled in her own private luxury rail carriage, and kept a permanent suite of rooms at the Northwestern Hotel in London to use as her base in the capital. She was feted by royalty before whom she often appeared, and was the first operatic singer to made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor (1905), beating even the great Sarah Bernhardt to that distinction. She was also decorated by the Czar of Russia with the Order of Merit, and was appointed by him as "First Singer of the Court." Other European potentates showered her with jewels, decorations and social distinctions.

Her vast fortune was inherited by Baron Cederstrom who transferred it, along with all her wonderful stage costumes, operatic scores and other memorabilia to his native homeland to be placed in the museum in Stockholm. What became of her fabulous jewels, in themselves worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, was never disclosed.