Bellini's three Giuditta – "Casta Diva"

The first Giuditta was married and was called Cantú. She deeply loved bel canto and to a lesser extent her husband, who she had married at the age of 16, in 1819.
Simple background information. Nevertheless, it sheds light on the fact that nine years later, for the opening of the Carlo Felice Theater, in Genoa, she fell at the feet of the young author of the work, Vincenzo Bellini, born in Catania in 1801, child prodigy at age 7 and destined to be the last representative of romantic bel canto of the nineteenth century.

Besides being clandestine, the relationship with Giuditta was certainly inspiring as well as long, passionate and stormy. Vincenzo, whose passionate ardor cannot be hinted at the delicacy of his face, had experienced at the age of 20 the greatest love affair of his life. She was Maddalena Fumaroli, a young student who aroused in him a volcanic passion. Unfortunately, as legend has it, Maddalena's enthusiasm subsided and after a while, it completely went out.

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 - 1835)

This early disenchantment would lead the composer, already mature, to choose for more than an option in love affairs. And Giuditta would have no alternative but to share.

For a few good years, Vincenzo had lived a long series of love affairs, in Milan and in Genoa. As a result of these idylls, for the premiere in 1831 of his great masterpiece, Norma, at La Scala in Milan, two other Giuditta were invited onto the stage, two old passions that Bellini had kept in a discreet background while Giuditta the first was at his side. They were the soprano Giuditta Pasta and the contralto Giuditta Grisi: a lucky coincidence which –when he fell ill in 1830– prevented him, delirious by fever, from confusing their names.

Norma - Casta Diva
In the first third of the 19th century, works set in La Galia or pre-Roman peoples became fashionable in Europe. Norma, opera set in the first century BC, is a good example. The protagonist of the same name is a druid priestess, fatally in love with a Roman consul. His Prayer to the Moon –Casta Diva– would become the most famous aria of Bellini's bel canto. Highly difficult and demanding, only a few singers in the 20th century have been able to deliver a performance at the height of the lyric spirit that the sovereign beauty of their melody entails. Notable exceptions were at the time, Maria Callas and Monserrat Caballé.

The American soprano Renée Fleming in a concert version, at the Palace of the Tsars, in St. Petersburg.

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