Carlotta Patti Concert

“The ninth Patti concert of the series at Steinway Hall was given last evening. After to-morrow evening, when Brooklyn will be visited, the fair warbler takes her flight to the interior to delight provincial audiences with the melody which so enchanted her metropolitan admirers. The unequivocal success of Miss Patti suggests a train of reflections on a subject which has greatly puzzled many people and impoverished many impresarios. The failure of Italian opera has been quoted to prove the dearth of musical appreciation in the New York public. Yet Miss Patti has thronged the immense auditorium of Steinway Hall every evening of her performances. We shall find that the secret lies not in the lack of appreciation, but in the excess of it. The American taste is not satisfied with a long, wearisome affair, such as our operatic entertainments have been, with one prima donna surrounded by a company of the most ordinary vocalists. The prevailing taste is for the concert as against the opera; for in the one are contained the salient features—the culled flowers, so to speak—of the other. American musical taste, like American genius, goes straight to the point. Miss Patti, in her leavetaking last evening, sang from ‘Sonnambula’ and ‘Linda,’ the ‘Ah! non giunge’ of the former being her pièce de résistance, and receiving just applause for its delicious rendering. The duet in ‘Linda’ took place with Herr Habelmann. Ronconi, Ritter and Prume lent their eminent artistic powers to swell Miss Patti’s final offering to the public.”