ADINI [ADINY], Ada [SCHILLINGER, Ada] (b Boston, ? 1 March 1856; d Pourville, Dieppe, 22 February 1924)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century singer Ada Adini. Ada Adini had a career that went crescendo, from indifferent beginnings as a light soprano to a position as one of the stars of the turn-of-the-century Wagnerian stage. She is said, erroneously, to have been born 'Adele Chapman'. Ada grew up in Florence and studied singing, first with her sort-of step-father and then with Pauline Viardot-Garcia in Paris. And, while in Paris, she became involved with the fifteen-or-so-years-older tenor Antonio Aramburo. Ada is said to have made her first stage appearance either in I puritani at Casalmonferrato or as Dinorah in Varese in 1876 followed by engagements in Mantova (Rigoletto), Madrid and Prague, then, in October 1879, she returned to America, having been engaged by Mapleson for a season. In the 1890s and 1900s, Ada made a particular success of the Brünnhilde of Die Walküre, and, following her first Isolde, at Leipzig, she repeated that role frequently.