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Home » Articles » Adelina Patti (1843-1919), opera singerAdelina Patti (1843-1919), opera singer
A collection of items relating to Adelina Patti, the opera singer, who lived at Craig-y-Nos castle, between Ystradgynlais and Brecon.
A collection of items relating to Adelina Patti, the opera singer, who lived at Craig-y-Nos castle, between Ystradgynlais and Brecon.
Adelina Patti was renowned throughout Europe and America during the latter part of the nineteenth century, as much for her charm, love life, and fiery temperament as for her beautiful soprano voice.
Adela Juana Maria Patti was born into music in Madrid in 1843, during an operatic tour in which both her Italian father and mother were singing. The family soon moved to New York, where, at the age of seven, she gave her first public performance followed by a three-year tour of America.
During the early 1860s, the Pattis moved to London, and Adelina began her successful conquest of Europe. The tempestuous and beautiful singer was greeted with wild adulation and showered with money and jewels.
Her first marriage to the Marquis de Caux in 1868 was not a success. He was eighteen years older than her, and she soon fell in love with Ernesto Nicolini, her partner in the passionate duets of the great romantic operas. In 1878 Patti bought Craig-y-Nos castle, between Ystradgynlais and Brecon, for Nicolini, and leaving her husband, went to live there with her lover.
In 1886, divorced at last, Patti finally married Nicolini in a civil ceremony in Swansea and in the parish church at Ystradgynlais. Now respectable, Patti played a greater role in community life, giving generously to the poor of Brecon, Neath and Swansea. Nicolini organised further concert tours, this time to South America, where in 1887, Patti was paid £1000 plus profits for each performance in Buenos Aires. She was the highest paid opera singer in the world .
Unhappily in 1898, Nicolini died, and a year later Patti married the sober Swede, Baron Rolf Cederstrom in the Roman Catholic Church in Brecon. Her lifestyle changed and there were no more parties at Craig-y-Nos. Popular sentimental songs like 'The Last Rose of Summer' replaced operatic arias. Her career abroad declined and her heart weakened. She died in Craig-y-Nos castle at the age of seventy six, and was buried in Paris at the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise among many other great artistes of her time.
[Source: Brecknock Museum & Art Gallery]
