Brooch, performance brooch

Brooch of gilt metal and multi-coloured paste stones in the form of a rosette. Carlotta Marchisio wore it in the role of Semiramis in Rossini's 'Semiramide' and Adelina Patti later wore it when performing the role at Covent Garden in July 1878.
The opera critic of 'The Times’ commented that ‘Madame Patti not only executed the music with such ease and fluency...but looked and acted the part of the imposing Assyrian Queen in perfection’.
Patti owned a castle in Wales called Craig-y-Nos in which she built her own private 150 seat theatre. The theatre curtain depicted her as Semiramis in a chariot pulled by two white horses.
Adelina Patti (1843-1919) was a soprano born into a musical Italian family. She grew up in the Bronx in New York City. In 1861, aged 18, Patti performed to great acclaim at Covent Garden in ‘La sonnambula’ and appeared there in every season until 1884. She also sang worldwide, especially in Europe. The highest earning singer of her era, Patti married three times. One of the characters in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ refers to ‘Patti singing divinely’, and Patti’s portrait was painted by Winterhalter, among others.