AD ELI N A PATTI 379 pent-up fervor of the assembly exploding in a ringing cheer of acclamation rarely heard within the walls of the Royal Italian Opera House. The heroine of the evening was Adelina Patti, who thenceforward became the idol of the musical world. When I left the theatre that evening, I became conscious that a course of fascination had commenced of a most unwonted nature ; one that neithei time nor change has modified, but which three decades have served only to en- hance and intensify. At the conclusion of the performance, Mr. Gye went on to the stage full of the excitement which prevailed in the theatre, and he immediately concluded an engagement with Mile. Patti on the terms which had been previously agreed between them; these being that Mile. Patti was to receive at the rate of ^150 a month for three years, appearing twice each week during the season, or at the rate of about £j for each performance. Mr. Gye also offered her the sum of j£200 if she would consent to sing exclusively at Covent Garden. Patti repeated her performance of Amina eight times during the season, and subsequently confirmed her success by her assumption of Lucia, Violetta, Zep lina, Martha, and Rosina. Having met with such unprecedented success throughout the London season, Mile. Patti was offered an engagement to sing at the Italian Opera in Paris, where unusual curiosity was awakened concerning her. Everyone is aware that the Parisians do not admit an artist to be a celebrity until they have themselves acknowledged it. At Paris, after the first act, the sensation was indescribable, musicians, ministers, poets, and fashionable beauties all concurring in the gen- eral chorus of acclamation ; while the genial Auber, the composer of so many delightful operas, and one of the greatest authorities, by his experience and judg- ment, on all musical matters, was so enchanted that he declared she had made him young again, and for several days he could scarcely talk on any other subject but Adelina Patti and opera. The conquest she had achieved with the English public was thus triumphantly ratified by the exacting and critical members of musical society in Paris. Adele Juan Maria Patti, according to her own statement, which she related to the Queen Isabella of Spain, was born at Madrid, on February 19, 1843, and is the youngest daughter of two famous Italian singers, Signor Salvatore Patti and Signora Patti-Barili. The signor having placed her two sisters — Amalia, who subsequently married Maurice Strakosch, the well-known impresario, and Carlotta, also a vocalist of remarkable powers — in a boarding-school at Milan, went to New York with his wife and daughter, where they remained until Ade- lina reached sixteen. Adelina Patti had barely reached the age of three years when she was heard humming and singing the airs her mother sang. The child's voice was naturally so flexible that executive difficulties were always easy to her, and, before she had attained her ninth year she could execute a prolonged shake with fluency. Her father not being prosperous at the time, it be- came a necessity for him to look for support to his little Adelina, who had shown
