Pasta's next remarkable impersonation was that of Armando in "Il Crociato in Egitto," written by Meyerbeer for Signor Velluti, the last of the race of male sopranos. She had already performed it in Paris, and been overwhelmed with abuse by Velluti's partisans, who were enraged to see their favorite's strong part taken from him by one so much superior in genius, however inferior in mere executive vocalism. Velluti had disfigured his performance by introducing a perfect cascade of roulades and fiorituri, but Pasta's delivery of the music, while inspired by her great tragic sensibility, was marked by such breadth and fidelity that many thought they heard the music for the first time. A ludicrous story is told of the first performance in London. Pasta had flown to her dressing-room at the end of one of the scenes to change her costume, but the audience demanding a repetition of the trio with Mme. Caradori and Mile. Brambilla, Pasta was obliged to appear, amid shouts of laughter, half Crusader, half Mameluke.
On the occasion of her benefit the same season, the opera being "Otello," Mme. Pasta essayed the daring experiment of singing and playing the rôle of the Moor, Mile. Sontag singing Desdemona. Though the transposition of the music from a tenor to a mezzo-soprano voice injured the effect of the concerted pieces, the passionate acting redeemed the innovation. In the last act, where she, as Otello, seized Desdemona and dragged her by the hair to the bed that she might stab her, the effect was one of such tragic horror that many left the theatre. She thus united the most cultivated vocal excellence with dramatic genius of unequaled power. "Mme. Pasta," said a clever writer, "is in fact the founder of a new school, and after her the possession of vocal talent alone is insufficient to secure high favor, or to excite the same degree of interest for any length of time. Even in Italy, where the mixture of dramatic with musical science was long neglected, and not appreciated for want of persons equally gifted with both attainments, 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." The presence of Malibran and Sontag during this season inspired Pasta to almost superhuman efforts to maintain her threatened supremacy. In her efforts to surpass these brilliant young rivals in all respects, she laid herself open to criticism by departing somewhat from the severe and classic school of delivery which had always distinguished her, and overloading her singing with ornament.
Honors were showered on Pasta in different parts of Europe. She was made first court singer in 1829 by the Emperor of Austria, and presented by him with a superb diadem of rubies and diamonds. At Bologna, where she performed in twelve of the Rossinian operas under the bâton of the composer himself, a medal was struck in her honor by the Società del Casino, and all the different cities of her native land vied in doing honor to the greatest of lyric tragediennes. At Milan in 1830 she sang with Rubini, Galli, 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. Taccani in the cast. Pasta and Rubini surpassed themselves in the splendor of their performance. "Emulating each other in wishing to display the merits of the opera, they were both equally successful," said a critic of the day, "and those who participated in the delight of hearing them will never forget the magic effect of their execution. 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."
IV.
After an absence of three years Mme. 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. She was no exception to the rule that very great tragic actors are rarely devoid of a strong comic individuality. In Erreco's "Prova d'un Opera Seria," an opera caricaturing the rehearsals of a serious opera at the house of the prima donna and at the theatre, her performance was so arch, whimsical, playful, and capricious, that its drollery kept the audience in a roar of laughter, while Lablache, as "the composer," seconded her humor by that talent for comedy which Ronconi alone has ever approached. Lablache also appeared with Pasta in "Anna Bolena," and the great basso, mighty in bulk, mighty in voice, and mighty in genius, fairly startled the public by his extraordinary resemblance to Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII.
After singing a farewell engagement in Paris, Mme. Pasta went to Milan to enjoy the last great triumph of her life in 1832 at La Scala.
She was supported by an admirable company, among whom were Donizetti the tenor and Giulia Grisi, then youthful and inexperienced, but giving promise of what she became in her splendid prime of beauty and genius. Bellini had written for these artists the opera of "Norma," and the first performance was directed by the composer himself. Pasta's singing and acting alone made the work successful, for at the outset it was not warmly liked by the public. Several years afterward in London she also saved the work from becoming a fiasco, the singular fact being that "Norma," now one of the great standard works of the lyric stage, took a number of years to establish itself firmly in critical and popular estimation.
We have now reached a period of Pasta's life where its chronicle becomes painful. It is never pleasant to watch the details of the decadence which comes to almost all art-careers. Her warmest admirers could not deny that Pasta was losing her voice. Her consummate art shone undimmed, but her vocal powers, especially in respect of intonation, displayed the signs of wear. For several years, indeed, she sang in Paris, Italy, and London with great eclat, but the indescribable luster of her singing had lost its bloom and freshness. She continued to receive Continental honors, and in 1840, after a splendid season in St. Petersburg, she was dismissed by the Czar with magnificent presents. 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.
We can not better close this sketch than by giving an account of one of the very last public appearances of her life, when she allowed herself to be seduced into giving a concert in London for the benefit of the Italian cause. Mme. Pasta had long since dismissed all the belongings of the stage, and her voice, which at its best had required ceaseless watching and study, had been given up by her. Even her person had lost all that stately dignity and queenlfness which had made her stage appearance so remarkable. It was altogether a painful and disastrous occasion. There were artists present who then for the first time were to get their impression of a great singer, prepared of course to believe that that reputation had been exaggerated. Among these was Rachel, who sat enjoying the humiliation of decayed grandeur with a cynical and bitter sneer on her face, drawing the attention of the theatre by her exhibition of satirical malevolence.
Malibran's great sister, Mme. Pauline Viardot, was also present, watching with the quick, sympathetic response of a noble heart every turn of the singer's voice and action. Hoarse, broken, and destroyed as was the voice, her grand style spoke to the sensibilities of the great artist. 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. Viardot's quick and heartfelt response to a friend by her side, while her eyes streamed with tears—"you are right. It is like the 'Cenacolo' of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan, a wreck of a picture, but the picture is the greatest picture in the world."