Justina Casagli

Justina Kristina Casagli, née Wässelius, (Stockholm, Sweden 4 October 1794-Parma, Italy 1841), was a Swedish opera singer. She was internationally famous and active in Italy and Germany.

Biography

Born in Stockholm as the child of a tapestry manufacturer, she was enlisted at Dramatens elevskolain 1805, followig the example of her older sister Jeanette Wässelius, and was from this date active at the stage under the tutorage of Sofia Lovisa Gråå. She was contracted at the Royal Swedish Opera, where her older sister was prima donna, in 1812. The same year, she married the Italian dancer Luigi Casagli, and is thus known as Justina Casagli.

In Sweden, she was noted for her appearance, grace and flexible voice, but she left Sweden before she was fully developed as an artist, and her career in her home country was short. Her sister Jeanette Wässelius, in contrast, spent her entire career in Sweden and became the great opera prima donna of her generation on the Swedish opera, known as Wässelia.

In 1818, she left Sweden with her husband and travelled to Italy, were she made a huge success in Rossini"s "La Cenerentola" in Turin. She continued her triumph - it is said she "made herself immortal" - on the stages of Rome in Rossini's "La donna del lago" in 1823 and in Lucca in 1827 in Cimarosa's "Il matrimonio segreto", before she was employed in the National Theatre Munich in Münich in Germany.

After the death of her husband in 1831, she tried to find employment at the opera in Stockholm, but was denied a position, as her place there had been filled by Henriette Widerberg, and they were concerns that her voice had ben damaged. She spent her last years in Parma, where, according to reports, she died in 1841 by throwing herself out a window during a depression caused by her financial difficulties.

See also

* Elisabeth Frösslind
* Jenny Lind

References

* http://runeberg.org/sbh/b0757.html
* http://runeberg.org/eurkonst/0072.html
* Nils Bohman, "Svenska män och kvinnor, nr 2".