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Italian opera singer (1797–1865) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta (née Negri; 26 October 1797 – 1 April 1865) was an Italian opera singer. A soprano, she has been compared to the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas.
Giuditta Pasta | |
|---|---|
Portrait held at Villa Roccabruna, by an unknown artist | |
| Born | Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Negri 26 October 1797 |
| Died | 1 April 1865 (aged 67) |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
| Years active | 1823–1854 |
Pasta was born Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Negri in Saronno, near Milan, on 26 October 1797.[1] She was born of the Negri family, who came from Lomazzo, where the family practiced medical art. Her father, Carlo Antonio Negri or Schwarz, was Jewish and a soldier in the Napoleonic Army.[2] She studied in Milan with Giuseppe Scappa and Davide Banderali, and later with Girolamo Crescentini and Ferdinando Paer among others. In 1816, she married fellow singer Giuseppe Pasta and took his surname as her own.[3] She made her professional opera début in the world première of Scappa's Le tre Eleonore in Milan that same year. Later that year she performed at the Théâtre Italien in Paris as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Giulietta in Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli's Giulietta e Romeo, and in two operas by Paer.[1]
Pasta's first appearance in London in 1817 was a failure. Further studies with Scappa were followed by a successful debut in Venice in 1819. She caused a sensation in Paris in 1821–22, in the role of Desdemona in Gioachino Rossini's opera Otello.[1]
She sang regularly in London, Paris, Milan and Naples between 1824 and 1837. In Milan she created three roles which were written for her voice. They were the title role of Donizetti's Anna Bolena given at the Teatro Carcano in 1830 (and which was that composer's greatest success to date), the Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and the protagonist's part of his Norma (both in 1831), which became three of her major successes. Stendhal had argued persuasively in 1824 for the necessity of a score composed expressly for Pasta.[4]
Pasta retired from the stage in 1835 and performed only infrequently after that date (including performances in London in 1837 and in Germany and Russia in 1840–1841.)[1]
Pasta later taught singing in Italy.[5] Among her notable pupils were contralto Emma Albertazzi and soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini and the English soprano Adelaide Kemble. Another pupil was Carolina Ferni, herself a noted Norma, who in her turn taught the soprano Eugenia Burzio whose recordings are known for their passionate expression.
Pasta died in Blevio, a town in the province of Como on 1 April 1865, at the age of 67.[6]
Giuditta Pasta's voice was described by a New Monthly Magazine reviewer in 1824 as follows:
Her voice type was what could be called a soprano sfogato. It was described by Stendhal as follows:
In 1829 named cantante delle passioni by Carlo Ritorni, one of the most erudite critics of the period, he described her as such because her voice was directed "towards expressing the most intense passions, accompanying it with expressions of physical action, unknown before her in the lyric theatre".[8]
In modern times Susan Rutherford has made a specific comparison with Callas:
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