Footnotes

The 'Vienna State Opera' is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. This 1,709 seat Renaissance Revival venue was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, and designs by Josef Hlávka. The opera house was originally inaugurated as the 'Vienna Court Opera' (Wiener Hofoper) in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It became known by its current name after the establishment of the First Austrian Republic in 1921.

When the internationally acclaimed prima donna Adelina Patti (1843-1919) first took to the stage there in 1873, it was a major coup for the Vienna Court Opera, which had not long been open. Patti was the Adele of her day, an operatic superstar, and for a new venue it was a fantastic PR opportunity. Hence the fuss made of Patti after her first performance there on 6th October 1873, when Director Steiner handed this especially commissioned silver presentation casket to her on stage. The press widely reported the event, and were told that the casket was 'an antique and over 400 years old', which appeared to be contradicted by the fact that it had views etched on it of the newly built Vienna Court Opera.

Adelina Patti was born into a musical family in Madrid on the 19th February 1843, to a Sicilian father and an Italian mother, both of whom were opera singers. The family moved to New York in 1847, living in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, where her home still stands. Her parents recognised her vocal potential early and at the age of just seven Patti appeared in concerts across New York City. The child prodigy dazzled audiences, performing her first operatic role in 1859 aged just sixteen as the lead in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, winning huge critical acclaim. Patti developed into a coloratura soprano with perfectly equalised vocal registers and a surprisingly warm, satiny tone. Her supreme talent derived from the quality of her voice and the 'vocal gymnastics' she was able to perform, apparently effortlessly. As a known beauty, she also shone as an actress, and achieved notable success in comedy operas such as Mozart's 'Don Giovanni'.

Patti toured the musical capitals of Europe, travelling internationally as a major star for the next 20 years, not returning to the United States until the early 1880s. As the famous composer Giuseppe Verdi wrote in 1877, she was a "stupendous artist", being perhaps the finest singer who had every lived - a view shared by music critics and social commentators of her era.

When Adelina Patti performed in Vienna and received this casket, the Chicago Tribune wrote 'Vienna is just now in ecstatic bliss over the artistic singing and acting of Adelina Patti ... she stands now at the zenith of artistic perfection. Her still youthful appearance, coupled with the dramatic power which a long experience on the stage has imparted her, makes her, aside from her great vocal talent, the foremost of lyric artists of the day ... The price of admission is very high - 60 florins a box, and 10 florins for a seat; but when you hear her, you at once feel that your money has been worthily invested. What a rich harvest awaits her in the United States!'

Patti's stratospheric career garnered huge riches; she was a shrewd business woman, a master of publicity, had impeccable contacts, and moved effortlessly in the highest echelons of Victorian society. Her personal life was also colourful, and with the public as interested in her private life as public life she was at the very forefront of the birth of 'celebrity'. Interestingly she lived the tail end of her life in Wales - at 'Craig-Y-Nos Castle', in the Brecon Beacons near Swansea.

Today Adelina Patti is something of an enigma. The second most celebrated woman in the world in the year of 1900, after Queen Victoria, is today almost forgotten - unless of course you are an opera lover.