New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, January 13, 1892, p. 2

Theater and Music

Adelina Patti was able to achieve the impossible, fill the Metropolitan Opera House completely for the first time this season. With the exception of some Loge seats the house was filled with an anticipatory public who could hardly wait for the moment to explode when Adelina Patti appeared around 9:15 pm, dressed in a rich tasteful mauve atlas silk. At 49 years of age this artists knew how to preserve her light step, if not totally in her voice. She literally danced on and off the stage. It's not necessary to state that her song presentations were followed by loud applause. After her 'Home sweet Home' the audience demanded another encore and sat down when she intoned 'Come trough the rye'. The elations continued in the second half of the program when she sang parts of the 1st and 3rd Act of Rossini's opera Semiramis. None of today's singers is able to breath new life into these faded melodies. What Patti still brings to the stage at her age is enough to make one or two 'prima donnas' out of current Metropolitan House artists. Her voice might have lost on volume but she is still the best song artist. Her accurate intonation, the surprisingly secure mastery of the intervals, but above all her accomplished noblesse of presentation make her be outstanding. Her unsurpassed song artistry has been lauded and analyzed from the start and is not necessary to repeat it here.

The remaining parts of the concert did not present anything unusual in either quality of subject. Signor Del Puente is known as an excellently trained Baritone. Signor Navaro is Bass of rather average voice; we would not trade six tones by Emil Fischer for Mr. Navaro. In the aria 'Through these hallowed halls' [Mozart] he ignored the lowest and in the second verse gently moved from the high g to the f, which the public hardly noticed. Signor Guille's Tenor voice sounds mostly pressed and squeezed but yet he has some noble tones. In his repeated presentation of the 'Streita' from the Troubador his voice showed definite signs of fatigue. Mlle Fabri is a talented Alto of excellent training and musical education. She was very effective as support to Patti in the 2nd Act of Semiramis. The participants benefited from the enthusiasm for Adeline Patti and many were asked for encores.

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