International Lyric Competition Giuditta Pasta

The City of Saronno promotes, with the collaboration of the Giuditta Pasta Cultural Foundation, the fourth edition of the International Opera Competition named after Giuditta Pasta, a celebrated soprano and opera performer of Saronno birth and to whom the city theater is dedicated, carving out in just four years a prominent space in the international opera scene and a point of reference for young opera singers eager to embark on their careers.

For this reason, on the occasion of the fourth edition of the Giuditta Pasta International Opera Competition, the promoting body City of Saronno and the Giuditta Pasta Cultural Foundation in agreement with the Artistic Director of the Giuditta Pasta International Opera Singing Competition M° Maurizio Moretta, will offer young opera singers the opportunity to participate as protagonists in the concert performance of an opera, La Traviata, thus making their debut in an important repertory role.

The young singers will have the opportunity for a week to work intensively, deepen and enhance their professional experience, under the guidance of Saronno’s M° Stefano Nigro as Conductor and Concertmaster, and will have the opportunity to participate in a Masterclass conducted by Andrea Chiodi, a well-known Italian director and Artistic Director of the Giuditta Pasta Theater in Saronno.

The event will make its debut on May 7, 2025 on the opening day of the singing festival and the Verdi opera will be performed in concert form on the stage of the Giuditta Pasta Theater with the Como Lake Symphony Orchestra.

The Jury will be of international renown and will select the best singers through an elimination round and a semifinal round. The final will be held in the form of an opera concert with the participation of the Como Lake Symphony Orchestra.

After the great success of the II edition that registered more than 100 entries from all over the world and ten months after the 2024 edition held in the district of Kumamoto in Japan, the Giuditta Pasta Cultural Foundation, with the support of the City of Saronno, opens its doors to the II edition of the Giuditta Pasta International Opera Competition, a valuable opportunity of international scope dedicated to young talents of bel canto, from all over the world.

Registration is now open and will end on MAY 2, 2025.

The Competition, whose Artistic Direction is entrusted to M° Maurizio Moretta for the fourth year, aims to promote high musical training, to support and launch the careers of the winners both through scholarships (the total prize money is €11,000) and through concerts and opera productions for important theaters around the world, with a view also to consolidating the link with Kumamoto City Opera.

Giuditta Pasta and Saronno have a relationship rooted in 1797, the year of her birth in this very city. The city theater was named after her in 1990 and the International Opera Singing Competition in 2019; in 2020 the administration inaugurated a museum itinerary containing the more than six hundred works of the Giorgio Cavallari collection. Giuditta Pasta trod the stages all over the world, and for her Donizetti wrote Anna Bolena, Coccia the Maria Stuarda, and Pacini the Niobe, while Bellini wrote La Sonnambula and Norma, of which she was an unsurpassed interpreter for dramatic power. To name the International Opera Singing Competition after her is meant to be an inspiration and example for all those who dream of enchanting audiences around the world with “bel canto.”

The International Opera Competition named after Giuditta Pasta was born as a bet on the territory, from the ambitious idea of combining cultural-artistic purposes with the creation and development of the image of the City of Saronno, which was the birthplace of this great opera performer, as well as providing the city with the opportunity to characterize itself as a cultural-international pole on our territory.