Holmes, sweet Holmes
Some Considerations of Adelina Patti as ‘Carina’

By "Our Man on the Tor"

INTRODUCTION

This project began in the way that so many good things begin, with a chance remark at a Holmesian convention. When Enrico Solito asked me, seemingly casually, whilst we were both in the middle of preparing the next event at the convention in Milano, whether I knew of the true identity of ‘Carina’, I had to admit that although I knew of a few points of discussion on the subject, I did not know enough to venture an opinion. Feeling that one should always support the President of any society of which one is a member, particularly when he uses the winningly charming smile which Enrico employs when asking for something to be done, I agreed that I would look into the matter when I returned to England. Like any good President, Enrico made sure that I did not forget my promise, and soon after I returned to England he sent me his idea that the true identity of the singer identified as ‘Carina’ in ‘The Retired Colourman’ [RETI 1116] was Adelina Patti, and he mentioned that he had seen a reference to a book written by her and entitled My Reminiscences, which had been published in 1909. He pointed out that in Italian, ‘Carina’ can mean: ‘Delightful, Charming, Lovely, Pretty, Atrractive, Nice or Kind’, and he thought that the name might have been given by Holmes, and possibly Watson, to Patti as a term of endearment or admiration, or as a personal nickname, rather in the way that in English one might say ‘The Delightful One’, for example.

Although that last term will be used herein as the translation of ‘Carina’, in that it is certainly a term which many of Patti's English fans might have used for her, it should be remembered that a personal translation might have included more than one of the translation words given above, in a combination of terms of admiration for Patti, since all of them might have been applied to her. From such small acorns, large oaks can easily develop. For my own part, I offered to support Enrico’s theories on Patti by carrying out research on any factual data which might be found which could connect Patti with Holmes in Britain. In doing this I proposed that I should serve as Enrico’s Mortimer, in that I would merely be "… a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean …" [HOUN 672], but Enrico kindly suggested that the position should be that of me playing Sherlock, in examining the data on the street, whilst he retained the rôle of Mycroft from the comfort of his Tuscan Diogenes Club. As Sherlock, I will attempt to supply my Mycroft with the same material which Sherlock himself had demanded in ‘The Copper Beeches’, when he insisted upon "Data! Data! Data!" … "I can’t make bricks without clay." [COPP 322]. I will accordingly here attempt to provide Enrico with the clay from which he will fashion his bricks. The root source of our investigations, however, will remain that cryptic reference in ‘The Retired Colourman’ where Holmes says to Watson:

"Let us escape from this weary workaday world by the side door of music. Carina sings
to-night at the Albert Hall, and we still have time to dress, dine and enjoy." [RETI 1116]

Patti Publications. The search for Patti’s book proved to be difficult, until it was found that it was actually not a 1909 book but a 1908 article, entitled ‘My Reminiscences’, which had appeared in The Strand Magazine in the December of that year, and it was also found that Patti had additionally published another article in the same magazine in December 1906, entitled ‘My Operatic Heroines’. We had thus already established a link, admittedly rather tenuous, between Patti and Holmes, in that both had appeared in The Strand Magazine. Some scholars might point out that the stronger link here is between Patti and Watson, in that both had appeared as authors in that magazine, but one must also note that the same relationship exists between Patti and Holmes, in that Holmes himself is claimed to be the author of two of the Canonical case recordings in The Strand Magazine, ‘The Blanched Soldier’ and ‘The Lion’s Mane’. Further research revealed that Patti had produced other magazine and newspaper offerings in Britain, with the earliest being an article in the 12 January 1884 issue of The Keynote, entitled ‘Adelina Patti’. There had also been a more technical article by her, entitled ‘The Art of Song, Yesterday and To-day’ in the 17 March 1904 issue of The Independent. She was thus reasonably well known for her writing through the magazines and newspapers of Britain, although it was not, in fact, for her writing that she was to become one of the most famous women in the world at the time when Holmes mentioned her in the Canon.(1) Something of this fame is indicated by the way in which Adelina Patti was often referred to merely as ‘Patti’ or ‘The Patti’, and this practice will frequently be used in this article. There is, of course, a minor linking with Holmes and Watson here in connection with Patti being referred to by her surname only, in that, albeit because of a British Victorian social convention, Watson never calls Holmes anything but ‘Holmes’ and Holmes never calls Watson anything but ‘Watson’ when speaking they speak to each other.

The Biography. The word ‘The’ is italicised in this paragraph title to indicate that it should be emphasised in the same way as that which, for Holmes, preceded ‘woman’ in connection with Irene Adler, in that this is the definitive biography. This superlative study is by John Frederick Cone, and it is entitled Adelina Patti - Queen of Hearts.(2) It was published by Amadeus Press in 1993 and by Scolar Press in 1994. This truly admirable example of the biographer’s art balances a highly readable narrative account of Patti’s life with a massive collection of technical details gathered from an incredible range of sources, including a wonderful collection of portraits of Patti, a highly detailed musical chronology by Thomas G Kaufman and an equally detailed discography by William R Moran. A very grateful acknowledgement is here paid to this book, not only for its contents but for the incredible listing of other sources of information on its subject. This book is to be considered an absolutely essential requirement for any serious study of the life of Patti. One should, in the context of this discussion of alternative names for Patti, note that in his book title Cone uses one of the popular titles which were assigned to Patti, ‘Queen of Hearts’. It will be shown shortly that she was a woman who was accustomed to being referred to by many different names.

Holmesian Studies. We do, as Holmesians, have other sources of information on Canonical matters, and in this instance the most significant is Donald Redmond’s Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Sources, (3) which summarises certain pieces of information on possible sources for the names in the Canon, although in connection with ‘Carina’ the two given candidates are admitted by Redmond to be less than satisfactory. The first is a Venezuelan, Maria Teresa Carreño (1853-1917), who was actually a pianist, although she did also sing on an occasional basis. The name does not actually sound like ‘Carina’ with the Spanish accentuation of the ‘ñ’, and, more-importantly, she is never known to have performed at the Royal Albert Hall. The other possible candidate is not in fact a person at all, but a comic opera written by E L L Blanchard and C Bridgman, with music by S J Woolf. It must be noted that Holmes did not say that ‘Carina’ would be sung at the Albert Hall, and nor is he likely to have said this, since the Albert Hall was not a venue for comic operas. He said that ‘Carina’ would sing at the Albert Hall, which clearly indicates that ‘Carina’ is the name of a singer. We must accordingly dismiss both of these Holmesian candidates.

Other Singers. Notwithstanding Enrico’s proposal that ‘Carina’ was Adelina Patti, we must firstly consider whether there are any other singers, who were presumably well-known to Holmes and Watson and well-known enough to be featured at the Albert Hall, who had a name which might be related to that of ‘Carina’, and who could have appeared at the Albert Hall in the Summer of 1898, which is the dating accepted by all of the major chronologists for the events of ‘The Retired Colourman’. One might suggest, of course, that not only female singers should be considered, for there is no indication of the sex of ‘Carina’ in the Canon, but the use of a word meaning ‘The Delightful One’ does suggest strongly that we can eliminate the male singers. Admittedly, Holmes does frequently refer to Watson as ‘My dear Watson’, but the word English word ‘dear’ merely indicates friendship in this context, rather than any more-intimate affection, and the value of the well-deserved personal feelings for Watson would certainly have been diminished if some other man were ever referred to as ‘The Delightful One’ by Holmes, quite apart from the fact that Watson would immediately have had to move out of 221B Baker Street if he heard Holmes using such a term with a man! The fact that the word ‘Carina’ ends in an ‘a’, however, removes all such problems, for in Italian the word ‘Carina’ can only be applied to a female. When female singers are considered, it must be noted that there are no well-known singers who meet the above requirements, and we must therefore conclude that the name ‘Carina’ is some sort of disguising or personal name, used by Holmes and Watson, somewhat in the way that Holmes and Watson referred to Irene Adler in a disguising way, both with that otherwise unknown name for an opera singer, ‘Irene Adler’, and with the pet name which Holmes used for that singer, ‘The Woman’. We will accordingly examine Enrico’s candidate for suitability, in terms of her possible connections with the Albert Hall and Sherlock Homes, although we will initially give a summarisation of her fascinating life story.

Family Background. Patti’s parents were Italian, and both were reasonably well-known opera singers. Her father, Salvatore Patti, was born in Catania in Sicily, and her mother, Caterina, was born in Rome. Here we have the first suggestion of a possible connection between Patti and ‘Carina’, in that Patti might well have appreciated the use of a term which meant both ‘Dearest’ and which was closely connected with her mother’s name, in that we merely have to remove the ‘te’ from Caterina to produce ‘Carina’. There was, in fact, to be another connection of this sort in Patti’s later life, in that her sister-in-law from her third and final marriage was to be called Karin, with that name being changed within the family to become even closer to ‘Carina’, with Adeline’s niece, Carin Cederström. There were other resonances of ‘Carina’ in Adeline’s immediate family with her brother being Carlo and her sister being Carlotta. One might also note that there was a temperamental association, with some specific physical attributes, which might be seen between Caterina and a certain well-known consulting detective, where Caterina’s temper was described by Emma Eames, who said that Caterina often: "… seized upon the fire-tongs or some other object at hand in order to enforce … her will." (4) Perhaps one of the objects at hand she was "… a whip …" like that with which Holmes threatened to enforce his will upon James Windibank in ‘A Case of Identity’ [IDEN 200], or maybe, given her propensity for new uses for fire-place accoutrements, she was also as adept at straightening out bent pokers as was Holmes in ‘The Speckled Band’ [SPEC 265]!

The Birth of Patti. As Salvatore and Caterina Patti were frequently touring operatic venues, only one of their four children, Carlotta, was actually born in Italy, with that event taking place in the Canonically-connected city of Firenze [EMPT 487]. Adelina was born in Madrid, a city which does, of course, also have Canonical connections, in being mentioned in ‘The Second Stain’ [SECO 666] (5) and in ‘Wisteria Lodge’ [WIST 885]. Interestingly, with the latter case, Holmes traced Don Murillo not only to Madrid, but also to Roma, thus establishing another association with Italy, at a time prior to the reference to ‘Carina’ in ‘The Retired Colourman’. Patti was born on 19 February 1843, making her just over ten years older than Holmes. She gave her first professional singing performance at the age of eight, in New York, and she made her full operatic debut at the age of 16, on 29 November 1859, also in New York. She was an immediate success, and all of her early performances were in America, where she was to continue singing occasionally until 1904, and where she earned most of what was to be a truly huge fortune. As a great star, she was to become involved in the ‘Opera War’ in New York in the 1880s.

Arrival in England. Patti longed for European recognition, and on 14 May 1861 she made her European debut with a performance at the Covent Garden Theatre, an opera house which is mentioned in ‘The Red Circle’ [REDC 913]. This is, of course, a particularly Italian case, and it should be noted that the alternative title for the Covent Garden Theatre was ‘The Royal Italian Opera House’, which will have helped Patti to feel at home in London. We will return to this important venue shortly. During her Spring and Summer season at Covent Garden, Patti also appeared at Buckingham Palace, on 28 June 1861, before Queen Victoria, who is also mentioned in the Canon in a context shared by Patti and Holmes, as we will see. Also present at the palace was a man who became a great admirer of Patti, The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who is considered by many Holmesian scholars to have been the eponymous subject of the case entitled ‘The Illustrious Client’. We will also return to His Royal Highness shortly, but it should be recorded that Patti appeared at Buckingham Palace on many more occasions during her active singing career. Between 1861 and 1885, Covent Garden became the focal point for Patti’s performances, in that she had a Spring and Summer season of concerts there every year - something which she did nowhere else in the world, even though she did visit numerous other countries, and she thus established an extremely intimate connection with London. In 1886, she transferred her London allegiance, with concerts in most years until 1907, to the Royal Albert Hall, which brings us to the important reference to ‘Carina’ appearing at that venue in 1898, and we will, of course return to that topic. Incidentally, one must not forget Italy in this discussion of Patti’s performances, and it can be noted that he Italian operatic debut was in that Canonically important city of Firenze, in that she appeared at the Teatro Pagliano on 11 November 1865, giving ten performances there and four more in Turin, at the Teatro Regio, during a six week visit to Italy. Whist in Firenze Patti appeared before the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, and the King and Queen of Portugal.

Patti’s First Marriage. Patti’s personal life was certainly colourful and dramatic. In 1868 she married the Marquis de Caux, 17 years her senior, and an equerry to the Emperor and Empress of France. They were married in London and lived at Pierrepoint House in Clapham Park in London, although Patti renamed the residence as Rossini Villa. Patti thus established yet another close link with London. The marriage contract reveals a certain amount of cynicism on both sides, with one third of Patti’s fortune being protected from her husband, and the remainder being a joint account, and there were later accusations of physical violence on the part of De Caux. Patti left her husband and was publicly known to have been living with a fellow singer, Ernest Nicolini, who, in spite of his surname was French. Patti attempted to claim that her marriage was, in fact, invalid, in that the priest who carried out the ceremony was not licensed to carry out weddings, but the French courts decided that her civil marriage was a legally-binding contract. This, of course, raises memories of the invalid wedding ceremony carried out by Williamson in ‘The Solitary Cyclist’, with its specific references to the licence involved [SOLI 536]. De Caux was tempted to file charges of adultery, but he was apparently dissuaded by friends on the grounds that if Patti were found guilty she would have gone to prison. In August 1877 Patti was found to be the guilty party and had to pay all the court costs, with De Caux being awarded half of Patti’s considerable wealth. Although they were officially separated, they were not divorced, as it was almost impossible to obtain a divorce in France at that time, but she continued to live with Nicolini, and this became one of the most famous stage romances of the century. Because of her infidelity, Patti was shunned on private occasions, although not at the opera, by the stuffier members of London society, and yet she was, quite exceptionally, still invited at regular intervals to perform at Buckingham Palace during the reign of Queen Victoria. This may very much have been the result of the influence of Edward, the Prince of Wales, who was notorious for the extra-marital affairs which he had. In the USA, almost inevitably, given the never-ceasing American obsession with royal tittle-tattle, there were public suggestions that the relationship between Edward and Patti was not completely platonic! (6)

Patti’s Second Marriage. In October 1878, Patti bought a huge estate in Wales, between Swansea and Brecon, where she named the house, which she always referred to as a castle, Craig-y-Nos. She added a private theatre, which could seat 150 people, and extended the main building and the estate. It became one of the first private residences in Britain to have electric lighting, and one is reminded here of Sir Henry Baskerville indicating his intention of doing this at Baskerville Hall [HOUN 702], another remote countryside estate. One also notes that Patti added two new wings to her house, much as had been done at Baskerville Hall [HOUN 702]. There is also the fact that ACD had his own electric generating plant fitted at Undershaw, the house where he completed the writing of The Hound of the Baskervilles. In July 1885, Patti at last obtained a divorce from De Caux, although the latter died only four years later. Patti married Nicolini in Swansea, in Wales, in July 1886, and although some commentators suggest that they lived happily together until Nicolini died in January 1898, others suggest that there were problems, and Nicolini certainly removed Patti’s name completely from his will, after earlier bequeathing everything to her.

Patti’s Third Marriage. It was at a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, on 14 November 1898, that Patti surprised all of her friends by announcing that she was engaged to a Swedish noble, Baron Rolf Cederström. She was aged 56, and he was exactly half her age. The wedding took place in Brecon in January 1899, and a local newspaper noted that she took 200 pieces of luggage on the honeymoon! The number of operatic performances she gave gradually decreased after this, and Patti gave her last professional concert on 1 December 1906, at the Royal Albert Hall. She did give occasional charity performances after that, and her final public performance was in taking part in a patriotic concert raising funds for comforting casualties in the First World War. The concert took place on 24 October 1914, once again at the Royal Albert Hall. Shortly after the performance, a member of the audience, and a long-term admirer wrote in his diary:

The admirer was King George V, and the concert concluded a public singing career which had lasted 68 years.

The Passing of Patti. Patti worked for various war charities, but she increasingly restricted her life to Craig-y-Nos. She became depressed by the war, and in the Spring of 1918 she was suffering from a weak heart. Although she rallied with the ending of the war in November 1918, she declined rapidly in the Summer of 1919, and she died peacefully at Craig-y-Nos on 27 September of that year. She was buried in Paris. Her third husband survived until 1947. In 1921 her Welsh home became the Adelina Patti Hospital for those suffering from tuberculosis, and it continued to serve as a hospital until 1986. It has since become a centre for artistic events, and the grounds have been opened to the public, and Patti would certainly be pleased to know that a music festival is held in the house each year.

Nationality. The use of the term ‘Carina’ for Patti is entirely appropriate, given her Italian parentage, and given the enormous amount of affectionate appreciation which existed for her singing abilities. A special linking with Britain is, however, not only indicated by the way in which she spent most of her life living Britain, but because of the fact that, on 16 July 1898, she became a British citizen. In addition, we have the fact that it was only in England that she took up residence, and it was only in England that she held an annual concert season.

Operatic Appearances. For Patti to have been ‘Carina’, and for Holmes to have heard her at the Royal Albert Hall in the Summer of 1898, the date of the case of ‘The Retired Colourman’, she must have sung at that venue at that time. This is precisely what she did, in that she gave a concert at the Hall on 17 July 1898, the day after she became British.

Musical Associations. There is an operatic connection between Holmes, Patti and another singer who is mentioned specifically in the Canon. It has been recorded that on the nights when Patti performed at the Covent Garden Theatre there was a "rush for places", and it was said that on those nights high society was

It will be recalled that Holmes took Watson to a de Reszke night at the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Also, amongst Patti’s operatic repertoire there is Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer, which is what the de Reszkes performed at the end of The Hound of the Baskervilles [HOUN 766]. Patti did, in fact, sing in major rôles with one of the de Reszke brothers, Jean, playing, on one memorable occasion, Juliette to his Roméo, in the premiere of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, with Gounod conducting, in Paris on 28 November 1888, less than a year before the events of the Baskerville case. The other great female opera singer mentioned above, Dame Nellie Melba, wrote, after hearing the announcement of this appearance: