Patti vs. Patti

Some Newspaper Reports

ADELINA PATTI, the charming prima donna, is in trouble. She has had a disagreement with her father and her brother-in-law - MAURICE STRAKOSCH - and has petitioned an English Court to be placed under its gardianship until she is twenty-one years of age. She says thnt her relatives have appropriated all her gains, over $100,000, and have prevented her marriage with a young Spanish gentleman whom she desires to wed.
Wisconsin State Journal 09/06/1863

The Paris correspondent of the Courier des Etais Unis, writing under the date of May 22nd, says that a musical journal of Paris had been received from London and was to publish on the next Sunday a note in English, written and signed by Adelina Patti wherein she invokes the intervention of British justice against her family - the family, on this occasion, being represented by Messrs. Patti, father, and Strakosch, brother-in-law.
Miss Adelina complains that she has seen every penny of her earnings, amounting to more than a hundred thousand dollars, swallowed up by the aforementioned Patti and Strakosch. This, however, is but a little thing in comparison with another exercise of parental authority. She was sought in marriage by a rich and honourable Spanish gentleman; her father had once agreed to the arrangement in case the young man's family consented. The young man's family did consent, but the lady's father refused to do as he had agreed, interdicted all correspondences, and allowed no interview between the betrothed and her lover.
Adelina now demands to be removed from under this tyranny, and to be placed in the tutelage of the Court of Chancerry during the seven months remaining before she becomes of age. She declares at the same time that she has no intention of seeking any penuciary return from her father and brother-in-law, but that she freely abandons them to what they have so unceremoniously grabbed.
Dawson Daily Times and Union 10/6/1863

The English press accepted Adelina's denials but looked upon the instigators as being misguided rather than malevolent

The public will sympathise with the young divinity of song in thus making her first appearance in the Court of Chancery, a suitor in her own despite, losing a suitor under much the same circumstances; and proving that the only compulsion she has been suffering under has been that of demanding the protection of the court when she did not need it. It is one of the penalties of greatness to have over-zealous friends, and we catch something of the power of the magic that the young enchantress exercises over her hearers when an utter stranger is thus found undertaking all the costs of a Chancery suit to bring his name in apposition with hers before a curious public.
The Morning Star (London), June 1 1863.

Patti vs. Patti

How Adelina Patti became embroiled in a trumped-up court case against her father and brother-in-law.

Adelina Patti, born in Spain in 1843 of Italian parents, was the greatest operatic soprano of her time and, in her youthful years, a more than passingly beautiful young woman. She hailed from a richly musical family and began her own vocal career at the tender age of seven, singing on the concert circuit in America where her family had emigrated. She made her full operatic debut at the New York Academy of Music in November, 1859, and her European debut at Covent Garden in May 1861. This latter was a huge success and within months her fame had spread across Europe. So it was that two years later, whilst still in her minority (the legal age for adulthood then being twenty-one in England where the family was by now based) she had become one of the most sought after and highly paid artists in the world and already a rich woman. Whilst she remained under legal age, her affairs were administered by her father, Salvatore Patti, and her manager and brother-in-law (through marriage to her sister Amalia), Maurice Strakosch, a former celebrated concert pianist. A german governess named Louise Lauwe had also been employed as her constant companion and chaperone. All three of these worthies took their reponsibilities very seriously, and took great care to protect their young charge from overwork and to guard her from unwanted attentions.

Then, one morning in May, 1863, letters arrived for daughter, father and manager, all bearing the stamp of the Court of Chancery and all referring to a civil suit that had been filed in that court in the matter of "Patti v. Patti." The letters were a great surprise to all three of the recipients, not least to Adelina herself who was named as the Plaintiff in the suit with her father and brother-in-law as the defendants. The two latter gentlemen were required by the court to immediately file an answer to certain charges that had been brought against them, unknowingly it seems, by the plaintiff. But how could this be, when Adelina knew nothing of any such legal proceedings nor had any complaint or ill-feeling towards either of the defendants?

The complaint, it transpired, had been filed by one James Ivor Macdonald, acting as "her next friend." This latter was a legal instrument whereby an adult person who has an interest or connection to a child (or an incompetent person), and has reason to believe that the best interests of that child are being harmed or interfered with, may make an application to a court on the child's behalf. What was unusual about this case, however, was that McDonald was totally unkown to Adelina who had made no complaint to him, or anyone else, on which she, as a minor, required representation. Furthermore, by morning all of the newspapers knew of the writ and it's contents, which had obviously been 'leaked' to them, and the affair was the talk of London. The complaint alleged that the "said defendants had treated the plaintiff with cruelty, interfered with her liberty, appropriated her jewelry, and kept her short of money." It also claimed that Adelina had been promised in marriage to a certain "rich and honourable Spanish gentleman," a marriage which Adelina herself deeply desired, but that the defendants had reneged on the agreement and cut off all communication between the girl and her betrothed.

For any such case to be brought it required corroborative evidence and such had been provided in the form of three intricately worded and colorful affidavits confirming everything set forth by the plaintiff and her "next friend." The case coming, as it did, just when Adelina was commencing a triumphal season at Covent Garden ensured that press coverage was feverish, most of which gave little thought to the veracity of the complaint and aligned themselves firmly on the side of their imaginedly maltreated heroine. The defendants, meanwhile, were forced to hire a lawyer to answer the charge and attempt to discover the secret of it's origin.

The story began to unravel when it was discovered that the author of one of the affidavits was a certain Baron de V., the Spanish gentleman alluded to in the complaint. This young man had fallen madly in love in Adelina and had convinced himself that she felt the same. He claimed that Adelina's father had agreed to their marriage, and to her retiring from the stage in order to devote herself fully to her wifely duties, providing only that the young man's parents give their consent. Such consent had been obtained but Mr. Patti had gone back on the agreement and had since kept Adelina a virtual prisoner and intercepted all correspondence in order to keep her from him.

The Patti's view of the affair was somewhat different. The young man had in fact become known to them sometime previously and had indeed sought Adelina's hand in marriage. But he had been rejected from the start by Adelina herself and had never been promised her hand on any terms. Despite this rejection, he regularly watched her performances and fumed with jealously whenever he saw the face of another admirer smiling at her, or a male actor putting an arm around her waist or placing a kiss upon her cheek. Over time he had become something of a nuisance and it had become necessary, for various reasons, to ban him from the house and forbid him to approach her. Deluded that Adelina wanted the match as much as he, and that it was only the unfair and unwanted interference of her father and brother-in-law that were keeping them apart, he had instigated the legal proceedings in an effort to gain revenge and/or have the court remove the obstacle.

The Chancery officials, presented with seemingly genuine affidavits to show that Adelina was indeed being unfairly misused by her guardians, had assumed the case to be genuine and allowed it to come to a hearing in which Adelina would be represented by her legal "next friend," Mr. McDonald (whose interest in the case was never fully explained, perhaps he was a paid accomplice of Baron V.). Even the Vice-Chancellor himself took the matter seriously and apparently looked forward with some gusto to inquiring into the charges! The press, also, was naturally anxious to report on the events in detail and extract every last atom of sensationalism from it - thereby playing firmly into the hands of it's instigator.

The Court of Chancery decided, however, that as Adelina was under age the case should be heard in camera for her protection - which also meant that in Great Britain at least, reports of the proceedings could not be published. But there were no such restrictions against overseas newspapers and the young man at it's heart gave (or probably sold) a garbled account of the affair to be circulated among the French journals. Newspapers in other countries picked this up and even some English newspapers risked "contempt of court" charges to quote portions of these stories.

When Adelina let it be known that she wholeheartedly denied the charges however, or any involvement in instigating them, the English press sided with her and began to look upon the proceedings with disdain or even to make them the butt of ridicule.

When proceedings opened before the Vice-Chancellor, counsel for the defendants placed into evidence an affidavit, signed under witnesses by Adelina herself, which ran as follows:

PATTI v. PATTI.

In re Adelina Patti, of 22 High Street, Clapham, an infant under the age of twenty-one years, by James Ivor Macdonald, her next friend,
and
Salvatore Patti and Maurice Strakosch.

I have heard read carefully the Bill of Complaint and the affidavit of H. de L., Baron de V., and others, filed in support of it, and I say that, although my name is used as the plaintiff in this suit, it has been done entirely without my sanction and even without my knowledge. ... There is not one word of truth in any of the allegations against my said brother-in-law or against my said father in any of the affidavits filed in this cause. I wholly deny that I am or ever was treated with cruelty by them, or that my liberty is or ever was controlled, or that I am or ever was kept short of money, or that my jewellery or any part of it has been appropriated by them. ... It is, however, true that the defendant, my father, takes care of the bulk of my earnings as an operatic singer for me, and I say I have the most entire confidence in and the greatest love for my dear father, and also for the defendant the said Maurice Strakosch, both of whom have always treated me with the most affectionate kindness.

{Signed) Adelina Patti.

Once the foregoing statement had been read, the Vice-Chancellor, convinced at last that the complaint had been fictitious from the start, summarily dismissed it and ordered the suit to be removed from the file. And there, accordingly, it ended. In it's wake, Adelina was left to the bosom of her family but nothing was ever done against those who had instigated the case and fabricated the evidence - so wasting the court's time and causing such aggravation to an innocent and loving family. The only positive outcome being the somewhat unhinged young man had been finally expelled from her life.