Giuditta Pasta - Studies and Career

Studies and Career

Pasta studied in Milan with Giuseppe Scappa and Davide Banderali and later with Girolamo Crescentini and Ferdinando Paer among others. In 1816 she made her professional opera début in the world première of Scappa’s Le tre Eleonore at the Teatro degli Accademici Filodrammatici in Milan. 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.

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, where the immense range of her voice and her dramatic gifts were matched by poignancy of expression. She sang regularly in London, Paris, Milan and Naples between 1824 and 1837. She created Donizetti's Anna Bolena in Milan (Teatro Carcano) in 1830 and Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula and Norma (both in Milan in 1831).

Pasta also taught singing in Italy. Among her notable pupils were contralto Emma Albertazzi and soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini and the English soprano Adelaide Kemble who records this in her memoirs. She also records how when after her career was really over Pasta unwisely came to London for a charity concert. Kemble asked fellow-singer Pauline Viardot what she thought of her voice now and got the reply ‘It is a ruin, but then so is Leonardo’s Last Supper’.