Adelina Patti

Adeline Patti was born on February 10, 1843 in Madrid, where her parents were on tour. Father Salvator Patti, a Sicilian by birth, was a tenor, mother Caterina Barilli, originally from Rome, became famous as a soprano. Very early dollars lured the Patti couple to the New World, and Adeline, like Malibran in her time, grew up in New York. The whole family was involved in music. Stepbrother Barilli taught the baby the first singing lessons, sister Carlotta, who later became a concert singer, taught the basics of playing the piano, and soon, when the husband of her second sister Amalia, heartthrob Moritz Strakosh, became a member of the family, Adeline, in his person, found the first vocal teacher, and later - a longtime impresario.
She didn't need to be “in love” with opera. Every evening at the theater, she eagerly absorbed the melodies, and at night, when everyone fell asleep, she secretly got up, lit a night lamp and played an opera for herself, dressed in her father's coat and in an old mother's hat with feathers, imagining herself as a singer and an audience at the same time, and herself awarded with applause and wreaths woven from pieces of old newspapers. The acting life of the Patti family went uphill and then rolled downhill, the Italian troupe went bankrupt, and seven-year-old Adelina began to earn money with everyone: she participated in a concert, placed funny figures on the table near the piano, so that everyone could see them, and sang an aria Rosina "Una voce roso fa" from "The Barber of Seville", who remained her signature role for the rest of her life - this is how a child's ringing voice collected the first dollars. At fifteen, she first appeared on stage. Without much excitement, with naive somnambulistic certainty, she ventured in 1859 in New York to play Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, one of the most difficult female parties. After successfully passing the test, she traveled the United States to its southernmost borders, and a year later in London, the snobbish audience of the Royal Opera House "Covent Garden" honored seventeen-year-old Amina, who conquered everyone with her graceful figure and natural charm, sparkling black eyes on her pretty face and, of course the same, surprisingly easy coloratura singing. 1860 is considered to be the year of Patti's international fame. Paris, Holland, Belgium, Berlin fell at her feet - this was the first stage of a career that lasted more than forty years with unparalleled consistency, not marred by recessions awaiting at the height of success.