Travels of a Scenic Artist and Scholar: Adelina Patti’s Stage Scenery.

Copyright © 2024 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett

On August 7, 2024, Mike Hume and I visited the Adelina Patti Theatre in the Craig Y Nos Castle, Wales. My last post focused on this well-known soprano and the construction of her theatre. This blog is going to look at remnants of her stock scenery collection. A few borders and a garden drop are all that remain. Visitors can only catch glimpses of delicate branches and lacy foliage high above their heads. Here is a view from the fly rail of the theatre that shows some of the original painting by scenic artist Walter Hann. He will be the subject of my next post.

I am going to start with an article published in Western Mail article about the opening of Adelina Patti’s Theatre in 1891, detailing some technical aspects. The article was discovered by Mike Hume, who has included it on his page about the theatre at Historic Theatre Photography.

The inaugural address for the opening of Adelina Patti’s Theatre was published in a Western Mail article. Mr. Terriss, a last-minute replacement for Henry Irving, gave the address. Here is an excerpt:

 “Ladies and Gentlemen, – I stand here as the humble and inadequate representative of the first of living English actors. It had been the intention of Mr. Henry Irving to signalize his appreciation of Madame Adelina Patti’s transcendent talent as a singer and actress, and to mark his strong sense of the close alliance connecting the musical and dramatic arts, by speaking a few inaugural words on this occasion – one that is unique in operatic and theatrical annals alike. For we are met here to be present at an initial performance held in a theatre which, at the generous behest of the Queen of Song, has been erected and provided with every mechanical appliance perfected by modern science in the very heart of a wild Welsh valley, teeming with the beauties of Nature and remote from the busy haunts of men.”

No expense was spared in the outfitting of Patti’s Theatre. The stage, machinery and lighting were also detailed in the article:

The stage is 24 ft. deep and 40 ft. wide, with ample height to allow the whole of the scenes to be raised into the flies without rolling. Every modern appliance necessary for opera and pantomime has been provided. There are electric footlights, rows of batten lights in the wings, and ground lights with coloured lamps for giving coloured effects. The number of lights in the entire theatre is 281, and all these are under the control of the prompter by means of a handsome switchboard which has each department labelled. A cellar under stage accommodates the machinery for working the scenes and traps: whilst alongside the auditorium on the opposite side of the corridor is a large scene dock, 32 ft. long and full height, to accommodate scenes when not in use. Behind the stage are five dressing-rooms on the first and second floors, with a loft over the properties. The architects were Messrs. Bucknall and Jennings, of Swansea and London. The builder was Mr. H. Smith, of Kidderminster; the scenery was painted by Mr. W. Hann, of London; and the decorations done by Messrs. Jackson and Sons, of London. The electric lighting has been carried out by the Wenham Light Company.

The Western Mail newspaper article provided the name of the scenic artist responsible for the stock scenery collection – Mr. W. Hann [Walter Hann]. A few of his settings were described in opening night festivities. For example, in the performance of Act I from La Traviata’s (Patti played her favorite character – Violetta Valery), the article reported, “Then the curtain rose, disclosing a very tasteful drawing room set scene leading out into a conservatory.” An illustration of this scene was published in Black & White magazine on August 22, 1891.  It gives us a true sense of how the stage looked on opening night. The newspaper illustration is now in the People’s Collection of Wales.

I also want to draw your attention to proscenium drapery – and how very little of the proscenium opening is covered in this illustration.

Such is not the case with the current proscenium draperies.

The drapery, however, was mentioned in the newspaper article when Mr. Terriss completed his inaugural address: “The great actor retired behind the heavy folding curtain of electric blue plush, which almost immediately afterwards parted and disclosed the beautiful act drop with Mdme. Patti as Semiramide driving the chariot.”

Other stock scenery by Walter Hann for the Adelina Patti Theatre included a garden backdrop, cottage wing and wood wing. I believe that the garden drop is still suspended in the theatre, although greatly altered over time with overpainting. It was used for first act of Faust, also performed on opening night.  The Western Mail article reported:

“When the curtain rose on the first scene in “Faust,” great admiration was evinced. It was a delightful rustic scene, representing an enclosed garden, Margherita’s cottage on one hand, a group of trees and flowers in the center, and on the other side a rustic seat and Margherita’s spinning wheel.” The “group of trees and flowers in the center” would have been a painted flat the rose up through a cut in the stage floor.

A photograph of Walter Hann’s garden setting was included in the Adelina Patti Documentary, produced by the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park.

I took a screen shot while watching the documentary and enlarged the image to compare it with the current garden drop hung from the back of the stage.

Unfortunately, the lower half of the garden drop has been heavily repainted; note the extremely bright greens and blues.

I was unable to photograph the entire composition, but the detail above shows the same pathways, garden wall and steps in the photograph above. The over painting is in sharp contrast to the original branches and leaves on the woodland borders (see below).

The branches and foliage work on the borders remains in sharp contrast to the more recent additions to the garden drop (see below).

There are a few things to point out about the overpainting historic stage settings and the addition of painted elements. It is relatively easy to spot additions when simply analyzing color. The brightest greens, yellows, and blues look like they came out of a can. These colors fail to include the complimentary color, thus supporting painted illusion for the stage. This is one of the topics that I had presented on the week before when teaching the Historic Scene Painting Workshop and delivering the paper, “Scenic Art: Past and Present”, at the Tyne Opera House and Theatre (July 30-August 2, 2024).

Only the garden steps in the composition below are original, whereas many of the organic elements (crude floral and foliage arrangements) have been heavily over painted. Specifically, the blue foxglove in the foreground, the shrubbery and vines against the garden wall, the pink flowers, and bright green grass do not contribute to the scenic illusion. They read as “flat” and without definition or dimension.

The overpainting primarily occurred in areas that were easy to reach from the stage floor. That is likely why the corresponding woodland borders remain untouched.

Here are a few more photographs of the garden backdrop, detailing the addition of foliage and flowers.

The repainting of an original scene is not uncommon. When a drop, wing, or other piece of scenery began to show wear, there were frequent attempts to “brighten up” a composition. When Walter Hann’s garden scene was “touched up”, additional elements were added throughout the composition, such as the pink flowers on top of the original spheres transforming each in to a floral vase (see image above). This same color was also added to bushes against the garden wall.

Photographs and illustrations of the Adelina Patty Theatre are extremely rare. Amazingly, I tracked one down from 1893 that depicted a cityscape, cottage wings, and foliage. The bush in the center would have emerged through the cut, attached to a sloat.

Here is the entire page published in L’illustrazione Italiana. I was astounded to discover that all of the issues have been digitized and area available though Internet Archive. Here is the January 15 issue (anno XX. No. 3)

This setting, and almost all of the other stock scenery once used for productions at the Adelina Patty theatre are missing.

The Theatre Trust includes a page on the Adelina Patti Theatre that shows an image of wood wings (see image below).

It is possible that they are in another area of the building, or I missed them, or they are the current wings (now painted black) on stage.

I would love to see the rest of the Theatre Trust images. They would help identify the rest of the stock scenery.

Here is one more that I found online (c. 2010) looks like there were flats on stage.

The photograph above was used in a BBC Wales Arts article: Five Welsh Theatres placed on at-risk register.

Only tattered remnants survive, but that does not diminish the significance of the stage nor the remaining artifacts.

My next post will examine the life and career of Walter Hann, scenic artist who painted the stock scenery for Adelina Patti’s Theatre.

To be continued…