Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-12
A D ELM A P A T T I
FER VOICE, HER GOWNS AND HER
PREFERENCES.
Time Deals Gently With the Great
Singer - Still Looks
Young.
From the London Mail.

FROM Inc London Mail
Adelina Patti is now in London and
makes one of her rare appearances today.
The hand of Time appears not to touch
her, fearful. as it Were, of destroying such
marvellous work of natures conceivine
One sees in fancy the goddess of beauty
and the goddess of song guarding her as
special treasure to delight the world for
her like will not soon pass this way again.
Patti never had a childhood. She was a
prlma donna when she was so small that it
was necessary to put her on the table that
she might be seen, and at eight she was
singing with fire and passion the role Of
Norma, revealing its tragedy of love be-
trayed, of jealousy al-consuming of ma
ternal sacrifice complete. Thus, now she
mas no old age. The tall, dark Swede who
Is her husband is a perfect specimen of
physical development and athletic man
hood, but although he is young enough to
be her son Patti looks young beside him.
AT CraigyNos he goes every day for
long walks stridng like the athlete he is,
and Patti accompanies him, tripping along
with the little steps of a child. and running
into the house at the end, rosy and painting
like a girl. If you are fortunate enough
ever to be guest at that great castle in
the Welsh mountains you will hear her
early in the morning singing lightly I'M
consciously almost, she runs up and down
stairs, into this room and that, fresh,
bright and youthful, her eyes sparkling
her cheeks aglow.
Her Voice and Beauty.
At the Albert Hall old men and women
will sit with their grandchildren and tell
about PATHS appearance and PATHS tri-
umphs in the days of their youth, and then
Patti will come out, unchanged in looks. TO
receive the same applause. to sing the same
songs with the same manner and In the
same voice-so the people in the audience
will say, even if the critics do find a few
flaws. Whoever will come after her will
be small In comparison, small in the esti-
nation of the audience which adores only
Patti when she is at hand and keeps on
adoring her year after year decade after
decade, with a faithful enthusiasm the
world has seldom seen equaied.
In attempting TO describe her voice in
this year of grace 1902 one says at once
that the ordinary epithets sound common
place when applied to it. that its sweet
ness its power, its fexibilty, its sensitive,
sensuous sympathy, are still superb, still in
perfect order, hardly betraying the least
effect of time. But one reads the same
thing in the journals of twenty years ago,
written often by hands that have long since
been dust. Is it wildly impossible to i'm
agine that the journals of twenty years
hence will have the same thing to say?
AS far as her beauty is concerned, Patti
few of the arts which ordinary beau
of their physical attractions. a great deal
has been written about her baths of milk
and the secret connections in cosmetics she
employs. but most of it is pure invention.
She does not even worry about her ward
robe, the ma jority of women find them
selves compelled to do, celebrating anx-
iously over different colors, studying various
styles. seeking the material which will best
set off their charms.
Her Gowns and Fads.
Patti always has a new gown for every
concert. but she never knows what it is to
be until she sees it in the dressing room an
hour or two before. Her dressmaker has
carte blanche and her millner Also and
neither Of them has ever made her a thing
she could not wear.
She eats what she likes, she lives as she
likes. she takes exercise as she chooses
having old-fashioned notions that 1t Is I'M
wOmanly to ride a bicycle and dangerous to
intrust ones life to a motor car. She has
no physician in close attendance to watch
every sign of Illness and arrest it, and,
most marvellous of all, in these days Of neu-
rotic feminnism-she has no nerves, Among
her fads is one for watches, and every night
before retiring she winds up eight or ten
of them and places them In different parts
of the bed room. One can imagine, or,
rather. one cannot imagine, the effect of
this upon some of the highly strung crea-
lures of the twentieth century who succumb
every year to nerves..
1t is we'll known that Patti never had a
teacher in the common acceptance of the
term, and that she never seriously studied.
Ask her who her teacher was: lie bon
Dieu,' she replies, smiling. So now she
makes no effort to preserve her voice A
few scales perhaps for half an hour the
day before a concert constitute the labor
of her practicing. Her mother, Mme
Barili, herself a singer of Importance, was
taking the part of Norma in Spain on the
night of February IS. 1912 when she COM
planned somewhat of feeling i'll, but fin
ished the opera, nevertheless and reached
her hotel at midnight. An hour later Ade-
lima was born. and 1t is said she never
cried because each note was SO full of
melody.