Ada Adini By Benque

as Catherine d’Aragon in "Henry VIII" by Saint-Saens


ADA ADINI (1855 - February 1924) American operatic soprano who had an active international career from 1876 up into the first decade of the 20th century. She possessed a large, expressive voice which enabled her to sing a broad range of roles that extended from the coloratura soprano repertoire to dramatic soprano parts. Born Adele Chapman in Boston, Adini studied singing with Giovanni Sbriglia and Pauline Viardot in Paris. . She made her professional opera debut in 1876 at the opera house in Varese, Italy in the title role of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Dinorah. She was then active with the Mapleson Company in New York City, making her debut with the company in 1879 as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto at the Academy of Music with Aramburo as the Duke of Mantua. She was later heard with the company as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore to her husband's Manrico.
In 1882 she joined Bartolomeo Merelli's traveling opera troup with whom she performed in Berlin (1882) and Prague (1883).From 1887-1890 she was committed to the Palais Garnier where she notably created the role of the Duchesse d'Étampes in the world premiere of Camille Saint-Saëns' Ascanio (1890).
In 1893 Adini sang Brünnhilde in the Italian premiere of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre at La Scala. She later repeated the role at the Teatro Regio di Torino (1898) and the Teatro Costanzi (1899). In 1894 and 1897 she was heard successfully at the Royal Opera House in London as Donna Anna in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni. She sang the role of Frédegonde in the world premiere of César Franck's Ghiselle at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in 1896.