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Today's Featured Biography
Adelina Patti
 A consensus of opinion places this distinguished artiste at the head of all her compeers, for it may be truly said that she is the brightest star which has dazzled the musical firmament during the past half century, and, is still in the very zenith of her noonday splendor.
Regardful of the transcendent beauty of her voice, enhanced as this is by her other natural and attractive attributes, one might almost believe that nightingales have surrounded the cradle presided over by Euterpe, for never has bird sung so sweetly as the gifted subject of my memoir, and while the Fates smiled on the birth of their favorite, destined to become the unrivalled Queen of Song throughout the civilized world, fanciful natures might conceive a poetical vision, and behold Melpomene with her sad, grave eyes breathing into her the spirit of tragedy, and Thalia, with her laughing smile, welcoming a gifted disciple by whose genius her fire was to be rekindled in the far future.
In the year 1861 there arrived in England a young singer who, accompanied by her brother-in-law, took apartments in Norfolk Street, Strand. The young lady, then only seventeen, sought Mr. Frederick Gye, who was the lessee of the Royal Italian Opera, for his permission to sing at his theatre, volunteering to do so for nothing. The offer was at first absolutely declined, but subsequently the young artiste succeeded, and made her first appearance on May 14, 1861, as Amina in Bellini's opera of "La Sonnambula." Unhe...
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