This Week in Classical Music: October 20, 2025. Giuditta Pasta. This week has many significant anniversaries: Franz Liszt, Charles Ives, Georges Bizet, and Domenico Scarlattiwere all born this week. So were three composers of the 20th century, Luciano Berio, Malcolm Arnold, and Ned Rorem. Georg Solti, a renowned conductor, was born this week, and so was Giuditta Pasta, a celebrated Italian soprano. We’ve written about many of these composers and Solti, but never about Pasta. Sometimes, listening to the incredibly difficult bel canto roles in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti, or Bellini, we puzzle, who did they write these roles for, who were these amazing singers capable of pulling it off? Giuditta Pasta was one of them.
Pasta was born Giuditta Negri on October 26th of 1797, into a Jewish family. The Negri lived in Saronno, near Milan, and she studied in the city. In 1816, she married Giuseppe Pasta, a fellow singer, and took his name. By 1818, she had sung in all the main Italian opera houses; in 1821, she triumphed in Paris, singing the role of Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. She then sang the main roles in the Paris premiere of Rossini’s Tancredi, a mezzo role, and Elisabetta in his Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, a soprano role. That made Pasta Rossini’s favorite singer, and in the following decade, she became acknowledged as the greatest soprano of the time. She sang in London, in Paris, Milan, and Naples’s San Carlo, creating leading roles in the operas of Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Paisiello. In 1830, she sang the first Bellini role, that of Imogene in Il Pirata. One year later, Bellini wrote La sonnambula with Giuditta Pasta in mind. She sang Amina, a soprano sfogato role, with the diapason stretching from the mezzo to coloratura soprano registers. There were few soprano sfogato singers in the 19th century (the great Maria Malibran was one), and not many more in the 20th century, the best – and best known – being Maria Callas. Also in 1831, in La Scala, Pasta premiered what is possibly the ultimate bel canto role, Norma.
The third bel canto composer, Gaetano Donizetti, also created a role for Pasta in Anna Bolena. Past sang the role of Anna at the premiere in Milan in 1830, apparently to overwhelming success. Two years later, Donizetti wrote another opera for Pasta, Ugo, conte di Parigi.
Giuditta Pasta retired in 1835, just 38 years of age. She taught singing later in her life and died at the age of 67. Obviously, we don’t have the aural record of her singing, but we do have the recordings made by the “Giuditta Pasta of the 20th century,” Maria Callas. Here are the final moments of La sonnambula, the arias Ah, non credea mirarti and Ah! non giunge. In this 1957 recording, Callas is accompanied by the orchestra and chorus of La Scala, Antonio Votto conducting. If Giuditta Pasta was really as good, then we’d understand all the accolades she received from her admirers, from the regular operagoers to the French writer Stendhal, a friend and admirer, who saw her dozens of times and heaped praise in many of his writings.
Giuditta Pasta, 2025
This Week in Classical Music: October 20, 2025. Giuditta Pasta. This week has many significant anniversaries: Franz Liszt, Charles Ives, Georges Bizet, and Domenico Scarlatti.jpg "Giuditta Pasta as Anne Boleyn (Brulloff)")
were all born this week. So were three composers of the 20th century, Luciano Berio, Malcolm Arnold, and Ned Rorem. Georg Solti, a renowned conductor, was born this week, and so was Giuditta Pasta, a celebrated Italian soprano. We’ve written about many of these composers and Solti, but never about Pasta. Sometimes, listening to the incredibly difficult bel canto roles in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti, or Bellini, we puzzle, who did they write these roles for, who were these amazing singers capable of pulling it off? Giuditta Pasta was one of them.
Pasta was born Giuditta Negri on October 26th of 1797, into a Jewish family. The Negri lived in Saronno, near Milan, and she studied in the city. In 1816, she married Giuseppe Pasta, a fellow singer, and took his name. By 1818, she had sung in all the main Italian opera houses; in 1821, she triumphed in Paris, singing the role of Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. She then sang the main roles in the Paris premiere of Rossini’s Tancredi, a mezzo role, and Elisabetta in his Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, a soprano role. That made Pasta Rossini’s favorite singer, and in the following decade, she became acknowledged as the greatest soprano of the time. She sang in London, in Paris, Milan, and Naples’s San Carlo, creating leading roles in the operas of Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Paisiello. In 1830, she sang the first Bellini role, that of Imogene in Il Pirata. One year later, Bellini wrote La sonnambula with Giuditta Pasta in mind. She sang Amina, a soprano sfogato role, with the diapason stretching from the mezzo to coloratura soprano registers. There were few soprano sfogato singers in the 19th century (the great Maria Malibran was one), and not many more in the 20th century, the best – and best known – being Maria Callas. Also in 1831, in La Scala, Pasta premiered what is possibly the ultimate bel canto role, Norma.
The third bel canto composer, Gaetano Donizetti, also created a role for Pasta in Anna Bolena. Past sang the role of Anna at the premiere in Milan in 1830, apparently to overwhelming success. Two years later, Donizetti wrote another opera for Pasta, Ugo, conte di Parigi.
Giuditta Pasta retired in 1835, just 38 years of age. She taught singing later in her life and died at the age of 67. Obviously, we don’t have the aural record of her singing, but we do have the recordings made by the “Giuditta Pasta of the 20th century,” Maria Callas. Here are the final moments of La sonnambula, the arias Ah, non credea mirarti and Ah! non giunge. In this 1957 recording, Callas is accompanied by the orchestra and chorus of La Scala, Antonio Votto conducting. If Giuditta Pasta was really as good, then we’d understand all the accolades she received from her admirers, from the regular operagoers to the French writer Stendhal, a friend and admirer, who saw her dozens of times and heaped praise in many of his writings.