The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-20
THE MARVELLOUS PATTI
HER VOICE, HER GOWNS AND HER
VARIOUS PREFERENCES.
Somewhere She Has Found the Elixir
Ignore the Passage of Years.

London Mail.
Adelina Patti Is now in London and
makes one of her rare appearances to-day.
The hand of Time appears not to touch
her, fearful, as it were. OF destroying such
marvellous work of Natures conceiving.
One sees in fancy the goddess of beauty
and the goddess of song guarding her as a
special treasure to delight the world. For
her like will not soon pass this way againl
Patti never had childhood; she was a
prima 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
/ has 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 Craig-y-Nos he goes every day for
! long walks, striding like the athlete he is,
and Patti accompanies him, tripping along
with the little steps of child and running
| into the house at the end, rosy and painting
like a girl If you are fortunate enough
ever to be a guest at that great castle in
| the Welsh mountains. you will hear her
early in the morning singing lightly, IN
/ consciously almost, as 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 audi
ence will say. even if the critics do find a
few flaws. Whoever will come after her
will be small in comparison, small in the
estimation of the audience. which adores
only Patti when she is at hand and keeps
on adoring her year after year, decade
/ after decade, with faithful enthusiasm
the world has seldom seen equaled.
In attempting to describe her voice in this
year of grace 1902, one says at once that
| the ordinary epithets sound commonplace
when applied 10 it, that its sweetness, Its
power its Disability its sensit I'VE IS, sensG
feet 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 imag CINE
! 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
| ties bring to their aid to prOlOng the spell
Of their physical attractions. great deal
has been written about her baths of milk
| and the secret connections in cosmetics
she employs, but most of it is pure inven-
| ton. She does not even worry about her
! themselves compelled TO do. celebrating
! anxiously 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 milliner 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 it is I'M
womanly to ride bicycle and dangerous to
lntrust ones life TO 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
neurOtic femlnlniSm-She has no nerves !.
| Among her fads is one for watches, and
| every night before retiring she winds up
eight ten of them and places them in
! different parts of the bedroom. One can
| imagine, or, rather, one cannot imagine,
the effect of this upon some of the highly
strung creatures of the twentieth century
| who succumb every year TO nerves.
II is well 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 10 preserve her voice. a
| few scales perhaps for half an hour the
| day before a concert constitutes the labor
| of her practicing. Her mother, Nine. Ba-
| rill, herself a singer of Importance, was
| taking the part of Norma in Spain on the
night of Feb. 49, 1912, when she complained
somewhat of feeling i'll, but finished the
| opera. nevertheless. and reached her hotel
at midnight. An hour later Adeina was
born, and ii is said she never cried because
each note was so full of melody.
HER FIRST CONTRACT.
! When she was merely child she sang
"Traviata" without a single rehearsal.
| When she first appeared at Covent Gar
den she was unknown and she sang for
nothing, but after her second song the
then manager, Mr.. eye, rushed behind the
scenes and made her an instantaneous offer
of a contract for three years at e400 year
and a season of ten performances. 1t is a
story of genius and what one enjoys to-
| day in her voice and in her charms is as
Elusive in analysis as genius and as far
| removed from the common decay of COM
mon things genius is removed from
! mediocrity.
Patti is likely to make her home in Wales
| for some time to come, she finds it diff
| cult TO dispose of her costly castle, far re-
| moved from London and inaccessible. Last
! summer she was in Sweden, where her hus-
band took a lovely villa for her just out
| side of Stockholm, but this summer she
will remain in Wales. The last winter she
! has spent in Italy, her mothers native
/ land, where she has many friends.
Few people know how charitable Patti is
| or how versatile in her omplishments.
| She has no near relative alive, but score
| Of distant connections live on her bounty.
| Perhaps few people in the world get more
! begging letters than she does One morn
| ing at Craig-yNos she tossed letter over
to a friend who was visiting her as an ex-
| ample of hundreds of others. 1t read
Dear Madam-You probably will not re-
| member me, but i spread the red carpet
! for you at your last charity concert in
| Swansea, and now my wife has a new
| baby, and we shall be grateful for any con-
| tributions "
Patti knows every detail OF her house
/