MADAME PATTI.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2028, 24 August 1880, Page 3

MADAME PATTI.

I am told (says “Figaro”) that the services of Madame Patti have been retained for a few performances at Moscow next winter, at the ridiculous sum of £6OO, or 15,000 francs, a performance. If true—and there is some reason to believe that no manager would act so foolishly—it need only be regarded as one step further towards the abolition of “ stars” at these absurd prices. If Madame Patti gets £6OO a night, Madame Nilsson, for her own credit’s sake, will ask the same. Next year Madame Patti will, I suppose, ask £IOOO a night, Madame Nilsson following suit, and so on, until, instead of “stars” being created to supply public demand, the artists will have to supply not only their abilities, but their public to appreciate them. Meanwhile, the result of the present Parisian season will probably prove a warning to operatic managers. Although Madame Patti does not receive anything like the sum named, she is promised so high a salary that the manager cannot afford an adequate troupe to support her. The season hae, therefore, hitherto been anything but an artistic success. If this result happen in one of the richest and most art-loving capitals of Europe, what can be expected at a village like Monaco, with its 1800 inhabitants, or, including the neighbouring town of Nice, under 50,000 all told ? Happily in this country the general tendency is to reduce all foes, and concert vocalists can now readily be obtained for £lO, with fresher voices, and likely to give far more artistic pleasnre, than artists who a few years ago asked £2O or £3O a night.