Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti was the reigning diva of the latter half of the nineteenth century. A guaranteed audience draw from the very start, she burst onto the concert scene in her mid-teens and proceeded to dominate the vocal world for the duration of her career. The daughter of two Italian opera singers, Patti was born while they were touring in Madrid on February 19, 1843. She studied voice with her half-brother, and was soon giving concert tours with the violinist Ole Bull, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and others.