In January, 1824, Mme. Pasta gave to the world what by all concurrent accounts must have been the grandest lyric impersonation in the records of art, the character of Medea in Simon May-er’s opera.  This masterpiece was composed musically and dramatically by the artist herself on the weak foundation of a wretched play and correct but commonplace music.  In a more literal and truthful sense than that in which the term is so often travestied by operatic singers, the part was created by Pasta, reconstructed in form and meaning, as well as inspired by a matchless executive genius.  In the language of one writer, whose enthusiasm seems not to have been excessive:  “It was a triumph of histrionic art, and afforded every opportunity for the display of all the resources of her genius—­the varied powers which had been called forth and combined in Medea, the passionate tenderness of Romeo, the spirit and animation of Tancredi, the majesty of Semi-ramide, the mournful beauty of Nina, the dignity and sweetness of Desdemona.  It is difficult to conceive a character more highly dramatic or more intensely impassioned than that of Medea; and in the successive scenes Pasta appeared as if torn by the conflict of contending passions, until at last her anguish rose to sublimity.  The conflict of human affection and supernatural power, the tenderness of the wife, the agonies of the mother, and the rage of the woman scorned, were portrayed with a truth, a power, a grandeur of effect unequaled before or since by any actress or singer.  Every attitude, each movement and look, became a study for a painter; for in the storm of furious passion the grace and beauty of her gestures were never marred by extravagance.  Indeed, her impersonation of Medea was one of the finest illustrations of classic grandeur the stage has ever presented.  In the scene where Medea murders her children, the acting of Pasta rose to the sublime.  Her self-abandonment, her horror at the contemplation of the deed she is about to perpetrate, the irrepressible affection which comes welling up in her breast, were pictured with a magnificent power, yet with such natural pathos, that the agony of the distracted mother was never lost sight of in the fury of the priestess.  Folding her arms across her bosom, she contracted her form, as, cowering, she shrunk from the approach of her children; then grief, love, despair, rage, madness, alternately wrung her heart, until at last her soul seemed appalled at the crime she contemplated.  Starting forward, she pursued the innocent creatures, while the audience involuntarily closed their eyes and recoiled before the harrowing spectacle, which almost elicited a stifled cry of horror.  But her fine genius invested the character with that classic dignity and beauty which, as in the Niobe group, veils the excess of human agony in the drapery of ideal art.”