A Reception She Didn’t Receive

A grand welcome was once planned for Adelina Patti—one that never quite happened. She was expected to arrive in New York on a particular ocean steamer, and her manager decided to make sure the whole city knew it.

He chartered sixteen huge tugboats, draped them in bunting, and arranged for them to form up on both sides of her ship as it steamed into the harbor. Their steam whistles were to scream, military bands were to play, Sandy Hook was to fire a twenty-one‑gun salute, and the opera chorus was to sing a cantata Arditi had written for the occasion.

But fate—and fog—had other plans. The ocean steamer wasn’t spotted until it was almost at its anchorage. Patti stepped ashore without fanfare, slipped into a cab, and drove to her hotel.

She later joked that she was ‘as happy as though twenty boats had come down the bay to meet me.’