Adelina Patti
in 'Lucia di Lammermoor'

A hand-coloured carte-de-visite showing the great soprano dressed as the eponymous heroine in the famous 'mad scene' from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. The plot concerns the emotionally fragile Lucy Ashton (Lucia) and her love for Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood. Needless to say, there's a blood feud between their two families. Based on the novel The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) by Sir Walter Scott, the setting is the Lammermuir Hills (Lammermoor) of Scotland in the 17th century.