Pasini (-Vitale), Lina

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Pasini (-Vitale), Lina

Pasini (-Vitale), Lina , Italian soprano; b. Rome, Nov. 8, 1872; d. there, Nov. 23, 1959. She studied in Rome. She made her operatic debut in 1893 as Cecilia in Cilea’s Tilda at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan; then sang at La Scala in Milan, Turin, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Rome, and Naples; retired from the stage in 1928. She married the conductor Edoardo Vitale in 1897. At the height of her career, she was widely regarded as one of the finest Wagnerian sopranos on the Italian stage. Her sister, Camilla Pasini (b. Rome, Nov. 6, 1875; d. there, Oct. 29,1935), was also a soprano who studied in Rome. She created the role of Musetta in La Bohème (Turin, Feb. 1, 1896). She retired from the stage in 1905.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire