Giuseppina Pasta

“ Pasta avoided extravagant ornamentation, for in many of the concerted pieces—in which she chiefly shone—her execution united clearness and rapidity. "Mme. Pasta is certainly less exuberant in point of ornament, and more expressive in point of majesty and simplicity," observed one critic, "than any of the first-class singers who have visited England for a long period.... She is also a mistress of art," continues the same writer, "and, being limited by nature, she makes no extravagant use of her powers, but employs them with the tact and judgment that can proceed only from an extraordinary mind. ”

“ Her reappearance in "Otello" was greeted with fervid applause, and it was decided that her singing had gained in finish and beauty, while her acting was as powerful as before. It was during this season that Pasta first sang with Malibran. Ronzi di Begnis had lost her voice, Caradori had seceded in a pet, and the manager in despair tried the trembling and inexperienced daughter of the great Spanish tenor to fill up the gap. She was a failure, as Pasta had been at first in England, but time was to bring her a glorious recompense, as it had done to her elder rival. ”

“ But exquisite as were, undoubtedly, Mme. Pasta's vocal exertions, her histrionic powers, if possible, surpassed them. It would be difficult for those who have seen her represent, in Donizetti's excellent opera, the unfortunate Amina, with a grandeur and a dignity above all praise, to conceive that she could so change (if the expression may be allowed) her nature as to enact the part of a simple country girl. But she has proved her powers to be unrivaled; she personates a simple rustic as easily as she identifies herself with Medea, Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena. ”

“ Poor Madame Pasta thinks no more of the audience than Nina herself would, if she could be observed by stealth, or than the fawn that wounded comes to drink, or the flower that droops in the sun or wags its sweet head in the gale. ”

“ Ebers tells us, speaking of her last engagement before going to Italy: "At no period of Pasta's career had she been more fashionable. She had literally worked her way up to eminence, and, having attained the height, she stood on it firm and secure; no performer has owed less to caprice or fashion; her reputation has been earned, and, what is more, deserved."
On her reappearance in London in 1827 Pasta was engaged for twenty-three nights at a salary of 3,000 guineas, with a free benefit, which yielded her 1,500 guineas more. Her opening performance was that of Desdemona, in which Mme. ”

“ This child demanded charity in a sublime manner. I have seen at one glance all the miseries of the mother, the wretchedness of their home, and all that they suffer. I should indeed be a great actress if at any time I could find a gesture expressing profound misery with such truth.
In 1828 Pasta was again in England, and during a most brilliant series of successes, including "Tancredi," Mayer's "La Rosa bianca e Rosa rossa," and "Zelmira," she achieved a great triumph in the part of Armando in "Il Crociato in Egitto," an opera originally composed for the celebrated male soprano Velluti. ”

“ At the conclusion of a scene, Pasta hastened to her dressing-room to change, but the audience clamored for an encore, and amid laughter, she hurried on to the stage again, half Crusader and half Mameluke.
For her benefit she selected "Otello," appearing herself as the jealous Moor, Sontag being the Desdemona. The experiment was a daring one. The transposition of the music marred the effect of some of the concerted pieces. But the tragic intensity of the great actress conquered prejudice, and carried away the audience. In this year (1828) Pasta excelled herself as an actress ”

“ In Berlin, about this time, she was received with the deepest interest and commiseration, for she lost nearly all her entire fortune by the failure of Engmuller, a banker of Vienna. She filled a long engagement in Berlin, which was generously patronized by the public, not merely out of admiration of the talents of the artist, but with the wish of repairing in some small measure her great losses. After 1841 Pasta retired from the stage, spending her winters at Milan, her summers at Lake Como, and devoting herself to training pupils in the higher walks of the lyric art. ”

“ While on the subject of her salary, it may be added that in 1826 she had £2000, [1] £1000 of which was paid to her before she left Paris, and £2365 in 1827. In each succeeding year her voice appeared more equal and her style more finished and refined. Her acting was always extremely powerful. Talma, when he saw and heard her, is said to have exclaimed, 'Here is a woman of whom I can still learn something.'
Owing to a misunderstanding with Rossini, then managing the Italian Opera at Paris, Pasta would not engage herself for that stage in 1827, but went to Italy instead. ”

“ The best of her audience were held in thrall, without being able to analyze what made up the spell, what produced the effect, so soon as she opened her lips. Her recitative, from the moment she entered, was riveting by its truth. People accustomed to object to the conventionalities of opera (just as loudly as if all drama was not conventional too) , forgave the singing and the strange language for the sake of the direct and dignified appeal made by her declamation. Mme. Pasta never changed her readings, her effects, her ornaments. ”

“ Of her first appearance in Milan Señor Garcia gave me a delightful account. At that time Pasta was a great favourite in the city, her most effective part being Norma. Such enormous success had she made in this rôle, in fact, that the Milanese always used to allude to her as "Norma" instead of making use of her own name.
Upon her arrival Maria Malibran was asked by the director of the Opera House in what part she would like to make her first appearance. She at once replied, "Norma, signor."
"But, madame, do you forget Pasta?"
"Eh, bien? I am not afraid of Pasta. I will live or die as Norma." ”

“ As an artist who could transform natural faults into the rarest beauties, who could make the world forgive the presence of other deficiencies which could not thus be glorified by the presence of genius, thought, and truth—as one who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other even in an age of great singers—Mme. Pasta must be placed in the very front rank of art. The way by which this gifted woman arrived at her throne was long and toilsome. Nature had denied her the ninety-nine requisites of the singer (according to the old Italian adage) . ”

“ Madame Pasta has a villa on the lake, some miles distant from Como. She has an excessive fear of the water, and never goes to Como by the steamer. Unluckily there is no road on her side of the lake; and she has a house on the opposite shore, in which to remain, if the weather is stormy, to wait for the smoothing of the waters. Methinks the elements are rude indeed not to obey her voice—never did any so move, so penetrate the human heart. ”

“ Pasta returned to England, and her opening performance of Medea was aided by the talents of Rubini, Lablache, and Fanny Ayton. Rubini performed the character of Egeus, and the duets between the king of tenors and Pasta were so remarkable in a musical sense as to rival the dramatic impression made by her great acting. ”

“ Another French critic writes, "If Maria Malibran must yield the palm to Pasta in point of acting, yet she possesses a decided superiority in respect to song."
"Since that time," remarks Mr Hogarth, "the superiority of Malibran to Pasta in song became more and more evident; while in respect to acting, though no performer has ever approached Pasta in her own peculiar walk of terrible grandeur, yet none has ever surpassed Maria Malibran in intelligence, originality, vivacity, feeling, and those 'tender strokes of art' which at once reach the heart of every spectator. ”

“ Her genius as a tragedienne surpassed her talent as a singer. When on the stage she was no longer Pasta, but Tancredi, Romeo, Desdemona, Medea, or Semiramide. Ebers tells us in his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre": "Nothing could have been more free from trick or affectation than Pasta's performance. There is no perceptible effort to resemble a character she plays; on the contrary, she enters the stage the character itself; transposed into the situation, excited by the hopes and fears, breathing the life and spirit of the being she represents." Mme. ”

“ Pisaroni, Lablache, and David. Donizetti at this time wrote the opera of "Anna Bolena," with the special view of suiting the dominant qualities of Pasta, Rubini, and Galli. The following season Pasta sang at Milan, at a salary of 40,000 francs for twenty representations, and was obliged to divide the admiration of the public with Mali-bran, who was rapidly rising to the brilliant rank which she afterward held against all comers. Vincenzo Bellini now wrote for Pasta his charming opera of "La Sonnambula," and it was produced with Rubini, Mariano, and Mme. ”

“ Pasta has exhibited to her countrymen the beauty of a school too long neglected, in such a manner that they will no longer admit the notion of lyric tragedy being properly spoken without dramatic as well as vocal qualifications in its representative. ”

“ Pasta's Medea, created by herself musically and dramatically out of the faded and correct commonplace of Simon Mayer's opera, was fitted with consummate skill to that eminent artist's idiosyncrasies, and will ever remain one of the grand traditions of the musical world. To perform such a work as that of Cherubini required Pasta's tragic genius united with the voice of a Catalani, made, as it were, of adamant and gold. To such an ideal equipment of powers, Titiens approached more nearly than any other singer who had ever assayed the rôle in more recent times. ”

“ The opera was "Anna Bolena," and from time to time the old spirit and fire burned in her tones and gestures. In the final mad scene Pasta rallied into something like her former grandeur of acting; and in the last song with its roulades and its scales of shakes ascending by a semitone, this consummate vocalist and tragedienne, able to combine form with meaning—dramatic grasp and insight with such musical display as enter into the lyric art—was indicated at least to the apprehension of the younger artist. "You are right!" was Mme. ”

“ Malibran had established herself so firmly in the admiration of the Parisian world, she accepted an engagement for the summer months with La-porte of the King's Theatre in London. She made her début in the character of Desdemona, a part which had already been firmly fixed in the notions of the musical public by the two differing conceptions of Pasta and Sontag. The opera had been originally written for Mme. Colbran, Rossini's wife, and when it was revived for Pasta that great lyric tragedienne had embodied in it a grand, stormy, passionate style, suited to the genre of her genius. ”

“ VENICE. Notwithstanding all the efforts of Bellini’s friends, who are very numerous in this city, his Norma has not had better success at the Fenice than attended its production at the Scala. In fact, had not the principal character been performed by Pasta, its failure would have been inevitable and complete. This great actress has not sunk in Venice below the exalted station to which her talents have elevated her in every other part of Europe. The second opera of the season is to be Eufemio di Messina, by Maestro Persiani; then will be brought out the Otello for Madame Pasta ”

“ The couple of peperoni had swelled into a regular colazione. First, of course, we had pasta, this time it was called lingue di passeri (sparrows’ tongues) , they have fifty different names for it according to its size and shape, but it is always pasta. Carmelo made a sauce for it over his fire with oil, onions, extract of tomatoes, and certain herbs; the recipe is a secret which is to be imparted to Ricuzzu when he is fifteen, but I think Brancaccia has already guessed it, though she is not supposed to know. ”

“ She had already represented the part of "Tancredi," and her three great Rossinian impersonations raised her reputation to the highest point. In London, Madame Pasta did not appear as "Medea" until 1826, when she already enjoyed the greatest celebrity. It was found at the King's Theatre, as at the Italian Opera of Paris, that Mayer's simple and frequently insipid music was not tolerable, after the brilliant dramatic compositions of Rossini; but Pasta's delineation of "Medea's" thirst for vengeance and despair, is said to have been sublime. ”

“ There is no public music in Milan; they still speak with enthusiasm of last winter, when Pasta and Rubini sang here, but say that they were miserably supported, and the orchestra and choruses bad. I however heard Pasta six years ago in Paris, and I can do the same every year, with the addition of a good orchestra and a good chorus, and many other advantages; so it is evident that if I wish to hear Italian music, I must go to Paris or to England. ”

“ We are here another week, and then take ship for Ilfracombe, and thence by land to Exeter; after that Plymouth and Southampton.... I wish I could be in London for "Anna Bolena." I cannot adequately express my admiration for Madame Pasta; I saw her in Desdemona the Saturday night on which I scrawled those few lines to you. I think if you knew how every look and tone and gesture of hers affects me, you would be satisfied. She is almost equal to an imagination; more than that I cannot say. If you rate "imagination" as I think you must, I need say nothing more. ”