PATTI AS A CHILD.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2608, 30 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

PATTI AS A CHILD.

The following reminiscences of Patti as a child will be found interesting. Long before she could apeak plainly, little Adelina would hum all the airs she had learned at her mother's knee with amazing facility, Nothing delighted her so much as to accompany her parents to the theatre when they went to fulfil their evening's engagement. Propped up against a wing, she would follow their performance through a hole in tho canvas, calmly dwpoHing of apples and sweetmeats, with which the artists liberally supplied her, the while. Well she remembers how on the occasion of an eminent prima donna milking her debut at the New York Opera HoufO -she ran up to the great lady, who was ourtseyiug after her final aria to the applause of an enthusiastic public, and with the ingenious impertinence of her five summers exclaimed, " How badly you trill! You rest too longou the second note. Listen to me, and try to do it as I do!" The appearance of Mario and Grisi in New York is another of the prima donna's earliest reminiscences, and she is wont to tell how eagerly she looked forward to the great event, and saved her pocket money to buy a little bouquet of camellias to present to the Diva of whom she had heard so much ; how, when the moment arrived, swelling with pride, she screwed up her courage to offer the posy, shy almost for the first time in her life ; Grisi, tired or impatient, waved away the flowers with the words, " Not just, now, little girl!" aud how Mario, standing by, caught her in his arms, and kissing away the tears, promised to keep them for ever for her pretty sake. Aftor the opera was over, the child ou returning homo would jump out of bed when all was quiet in the house, and by the light of a candle would attire herself in a red cloak of her mother's and, with her father's sombreo perched on her head, would enact the scenes now from "Norma," now from " Lucia'' or " Sonnambula," clapping her hands and shouting bravo ! at her own performance, while showering home-made wreaths and bouquets of nowspapers'fell at her feet. At length a crisis came in hsr parents' affairs, and, their finances.being , at the lowest ebb, the child herself proposed giving a concert, for which tickets at a few cents sold well enough. Mdme. Barilli, as she powdered her child's small brown face, felt no unnatural trepidation, but Adelina herself, nothing daunted, clutched her doll " Henriette" in her arms, and slrulting on the platform with iuefftible importance, curtseyed with her hands on her heart, as sha had seen Grisi before her, and then with the most precocious postures imaginable commenced her Ciistu Diva. Loud laughter and applause greeted the gifted child, whoso voice if not strong was pure and thrilling as a blackbird's, and whose execution of intricate passages was well nisih {'henomenal. b'rom that day Adolimi Patti's concerts became the rage of ihu town.