tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post8681294048191304545..comments2024-03-05T22:44:45.962-05:00Comments on Great Opera Singers: Adelina Patti: An Enchanting Echo of a Distant PastUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-1272378832999362302012-01-09T06:08:09.358-05:002012-01-09T06:08:09.358-05:00MOLTO BELLO!!! Thank you my dear friend for sharin...MOLTO BELLO!!! Thank you my dear friend for sharing this Valuable Biographical information.Thank you also for your Great Collection you have! I love your Rare Collections Of Great Opera Singers.Thank you and More Power, More Blessing ! and Have a Greatful week. *GOD BLESS*Gerhard Santosnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-76707530994037044542009-12-14T18:42:53.294-05:002009-12-14T18:42:53.294-05:00Thank you so much for the view from Russia. Now t...Thank you so much for the view from Russia. Now that is really interesting! I knew that Tchaikovsky spoke warmly of her, but I had no idea that she sang for as long as 9 years in St. Petersburg. Nor did I realize that Stanislavsky had expressed his admiration. That explains a comment made by Verdi to the effect that her sense of dramatization was so well developed. So, my friend, Большое спасибо, как всегда:)Edmund St. Austellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14490721790447218365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-38297904090885519172009-12-14T16:26:34.551-05:002009-12-14T16:26:34.551-05:00Thanks for the great article, Sir Edmund.
“… on...Thanks for the great article, Sir Edmund. <br /><br />“… only the critic Chorley disagreed about the supremacy of Patti's voice and technique, even writing that her voice sounded tired when she performed Amina at the age of 18! But Verdi adored her as did so many other eminent composers and opera critics.”<br />Perhaps Chorley wrote she sounded tired, because her voice had a special melancholic intonation, and maybe he thought that a young pretty girl should sing like a canary bird.:) That only shows how wrong critics can be. She definitely was a great singer, with the charming voice. A timbre, that is charming and expressive itself is a rare quality, but she also was very skillful and could sound so well in her 60’s. <br />By the way, she started to sing in Russia in 1869 and performed in St. Petersburg for 9 years. Among her fans were such people as Tchaikovsky and Stanislavsky .<br /><br />n.a.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-64920921709860775942009-12-13T18:45:12.905-05:002009-12-13T18:45:12.905-05:00You lay out the case brilliantly, Nate. I can onl...You lay out the case brilliantly, Nate. I can only add "Amen, and again I say amen." Yes, the time machine:) I'd settle for being a little 19th century mouse in the wall. That 16-year-old Lucia, as I'm sure was apparent from the essay, has fatally captured my imagination. I usually cringe with horror at even the idea of children singing, but something tells me she was the great exception. Roberta Peters did an unscheduled Zerlina at the Met, with only a few hours notice, and no rehearsal, at the age of 20, and brought the house down. (With Fritz Reiner conducting, if you imagine that....a man so severe that he filled everyone's heart with terror), so I suppose that might come close, but there is a huge difference between 20 and 16. That truly fascinates me. If you ever find that time machine, be sure to let me know:) Superb comments, btw.Edmund St. Austellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14490721790447218365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-89061324050805749812009-12-13T17:59:46.026-05:002009-12-13T17:59:46.026-05:00Edmund, thanks for your concise and insightful com...Edmund, thanks for your concise and insightful commentary about perhaps the greatest soprano of the nineteenth century. As you point out, virtually every composer, critic, fellow singer (and not a few poets) of the period thought Patti the epitome of the vocal art. According to Herman Klein, the great biographer of the singer, only the critic Chorley disagreed about the supremacy of Patti's voice and technique, even writing that her voice sounded tired when she performed Amina at the age of 18! But Verdi adored her as did so many other eminent composers and opera critics. Singers such as Jenny Lind, Lilli Lehmann, Albert Niemann, Jean de Reszke, Nellie Melba, Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzini, Emma Eames, Frances Alda, and Amelita Galli-Curci, among others, all sang her praises. In particular, Melba, Sembrich, Tetrazzini, and Eames were all-out Patti worshippers. And not without good reason! As you state, even at age 62 and 63, when her recordings were made--and about five years AFTER she had basically "lost" her voice, according to some critics, though not Klein--she still sounds splendid enough to arouse the type of longing to have heard her in her youth that you speak of. The golden tone, coloratura flourishes, and molding of the vocal line are some of Patti's virtues that may have diminished but not disappeared. Further, there is a captivating spirit to many of her recordings that belies the notion she may have been a musically superficial and pretty, merely perfect vocal technician.<br />Wouldn't it be fantastic to find out for sure? Where is that time machine everyone talks about?Natenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-6157861451203293652009-12-13T14:35:32.290-05:002009-12-13T14:35:32.290-05:00Thank you very much indeed! Yes, Patti is reveali...Thank you very much indeed! Yes, Patti is revealing on so many fronts, but most particularly as a prime example of the best of the old traditions from the 19th century. I can really hear in those distant echoes the ghost of what it was all about back then. Perhaps Roberta Peters might be something of a modern comparison...she also started very young, and was very popular, although there is a certain edge to her voice tht I don't perceive in Patti's. The milky smoothness of Patti's voice (at least to the degree it is perceivable in these ancient recordings) was unusual for a coloratura.Edmund St. Austellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14490721790447218365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6166918155946600787.post-9680659389970440082009-12-13T14:23:36.563-05:002009-12-13T14:23:36.563-05:00there is a certain symbolic rightness to this phot...there is a certain symbolic rightness to this photo's showing patti with a crown upon her head. as you note, she reigned supreme in her day. and you yourself show your chops as an historian here -- you are so right to remind us of the pertinent dates, and the time-spans entailed. born only 57 years after the premiere of DON GIOVANNI! that puts everything into its proper perspective, doesn't it.<br /><br />i share your fascination with the question of 'what would it all have <i>sounded</i> like, back in those days?' -- and i share your delight in this precious little time-capsule, which [as you so rightly suggest] not only takes us back to patti's own golden years, but also offers a glimpse of what things must have been like in the generation before her own.<br /><br />bravo yet again, sir edmund!coraxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03645573592247798140noreply@blogger.com