Giuditta Pasta, an Italian singer, of Jewish origin, born at Saronno, near Milan, in 1798, died at her villa near Lake Oomo, April 1, 1865. She received her first musical education from Bartolommeo Leotti, chapelmaster in the cathedral of Oomo. At the age of 15 she was admitted to the musical conservatory of Milan, and in 1815 began her public career at the minor theatres in Leghorn, Parma, and Brescia. The next year, appearing at the Ita-liens in Paris, she failed to attract notice; she was equally unsuccessful in London, and decided upon returning to her native country for further study. When, in 1819 and 1820, she appeared in Venice and Milan, she was greeted with applause. Returning to Paris in 1821, and visiting Verona during the session of the European congress in 1822, she was remarkably successful. Her triumph in London was scarcely less brilliant, and for several years she continued to sing alternately in Paris and London. In 1827, some business difficulty having occurred between her and Rossini, then director of the Italian opera in Paris, she accepted an engagement at Naples, where Pacini composed for her his opera of Niobe. Her dramatic powers did not please the Neapolitans, though they were afterward fully appreciated at Bologna, Milan, Trieste, and Verona. At Milan Bellini wrote for her La sonnambula and Norma. Pasta won her last triumphs at Vienna in 1832. Her voice, which had always been more remarkable for energetic than melodious qualities, was now impaired; and her last engagement on the Italian stage in Paris, in 1833 and 1834, was not on the whole successful.

In 1836 she retired to her villa on the lake of Como. Her last engagement, from which she received $40,000, was with the opera in St. Petersburg in 1840.