Lorenzo Da Ponte

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Lorenzo da Ponte

Lorenzo Da Ponte, born Emanuele Conegliano (March 10 1749 – August 17 1838) was an Italian librettist and poet born in Ceneda (now Vittorio Veneto). He is most famous for having written the librettos to three Mozart operas, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. Many of his works belonged to the Opera buffa genre.

Conegliano was a Jew by birth. When he, his father, and siblings converted to Roman Catholicism, he took the name Lorenzo Da Ponte, the name of the bishop of Ceneda who administered the baptism. Still later, he studied to be a teacher and was ordained a Catholic priest. However, unable to conduct himself in a manner befitting either profession, he was banned from both fields, and later exiled from Venice. Da Ponte worked in Dresden, and later Vienna, where he collaborated with Mozart and Antonio Salieri. He was appointed court librettist to Joseph II, for whom he composed libretti in many different languages, including French, German, and Italian. While in Vienna he also worked with composers Vicente Martín y Soler and Antonio Salieri.

Da Ponte moved from Paris to London to New York City to Philadelphia, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons before returning to New York to open a bookstore. At one point, he may have played organ at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore, the supposed author of "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and through him gained an appointment as the first Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia College (now known as Columbia University). He was the first faculty member to have been born a Jew, and also the first to have been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. In 1828, at the age of 79, da Ponte became a naturalized citizen of the United States. [1]

Another distinction shared by him with Mozart is the fact his place of burial is unmarked. Da Ponte was originally buried in a Catholic cemetery in Manhattan near Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral. These interments were later removed to Calvary Cemetery in Queens with little attention paid to who was who. A cenotaph to Da Ponte's memory is found at Calvary.

All but two of Da Ponte's works are adaptations of pre-existing plots, as was common among librettists of the time. Le nozze di Figaro, for example, is based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais, as is Axur re d’Ormus, which Da Ponte wrote for Salieri. The minor exception is L'arbore di Diana; the great exception Così fan tutte, an original work which he began with Salieri but completed with Mozart.

Works

• Opera Librettos
  • Ifigenia in Tauride (1783, ital. translation of the French opera Iphigénie en Tauride - composer Christoph Willibald Gluck)
  • La Scuola de' gelosi (1783, New version of the 1778 Libretto by Caterino Mazzolà) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Ricco d'un giorno (1784) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Burbero di buon cuore (1786, from the play by Carlo Goldoni) - composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Il Demogorgone ovvero Il filosofo confuso (1786) - composer Vincenzo Righini
  • Il finto cieco (1786) - composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga
  • Le nozze di Figaro (1786, from the play Le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarchais) - composer Mozart
  • Una cosa rara ossia Bellezza ed onestà (1786, from the comedy La Luna della Sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara) - composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Gli equivoci (1786) - composer Stephen Storace
  • L'arbore di Diana (1787) - composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don Giovanni (1787, from the opera Don Giovanni Tenorio by Giuseppe Gazzaniga) - composer Mozart
  • Axur, re d'Ormus (1787/88, ital. translation of the libretto Tarare by Beaumarchais) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Talismano (1788, from Carlo Goldoni) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Bertoldo (1788) - composer Antonio Brunetti
  • L'Ape musicale (1789) - Pasticcio of works by various composers
  • Il Pastor fido (1789, from the pastoral by Giovanni Battista Guarini) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • La Cifra (1789) - composer Antonio Salieri
  • Così fan tutte (1789/90) - composer Mozart
  • La Caffettiera bizzarra (1790) - composer Joseph Weigl
  • La Capricciosa corretta (1795) - composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Antigona (1796) - composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Il consiglio imprudente (1796) - composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Merope (1797) - composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Cinna (1798) - composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Armida (1802) - composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • La Grotta di Calipso (1803) - composer Peter von Winter
  • Il Trionfo dell'amor fraterno (1804) - composer Peter von Winter
  • Il Ratto di Proserpina (1804) - composer Peter von Winter

• Texts for Cantatas, Oratorios, etc.
  • Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) - composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri and Cornetti - lost
  • Davidde penitente (1785) - composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Il Davidde (1791) - Pasticcio from works by various composers
  • Hymn to America - composer Antonio Bagioli

• Poetry: Da Ponte wrote poetry throughout his life, including:
  • Various laudatory poetry for royalty (and some disparaging ones)
  • A long letter of complaint in blank verse to Emperor Leopold II
  • 18 sonnets in commemoration of his wife (1832)

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Bibliography

• Bolt, Rodney, The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte - Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impresario in America, New York: Bloomsbury, 2006 ISBN 1596911182
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, Memorie, New York: 1823-27; English edition: Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, translated by Elizabeth Abbott, annotated by Arthur Livingstone. New York: The Orion Press, 1959. ISBN 0306762900
• Hodges, Sheila, Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Life and Times of Mozart's Librettist, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002 ISBN 0299178749
• Holden, Anthony, The Man Who Wrote Mozart: The Extraordinary Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte , London: Orion Publishing Company, 2007 ISBN 075382180X
• Jewish Museum, Vienna (pub.), Lorenzo Da Ponte - Challenging the New World, exhibition catalogue from the Jewish Museum ISBN 978-3-7757-1748-9, ISBN 3-7757-1748-X
• Russo, Joseph Louis, Lorenzo Da Ponte: Poet and Adventurer, New York: Columbia University Press, 1922 ISBN 0404506321
• Steptoe, Anthony, Mozart-Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and Musical Background to "Le nozze di Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "Cosi fan tutte", New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1988 ISBN 019313215X

• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Libretti viennesi", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano-Parma: Fondazione Bembo-Ugo Guanda Editore, 1999, due volumi. ISBN 88-8246-060-6
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Estratto delle Memorie", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 1999. ISBN 88-7050-438-7
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Il Mezenzio", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 2000. ISBN 88-7050-310-0
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Saggio di traduzione libera di Gil Blas", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 2002. ISBN 88-7050-461-1
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Dante Alighieri", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 2004. ISBN 88-7050-462-X
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Saggi poetici", a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 2005. ISBN 88-7050-463-8

Da Ponte, Lorenzo, "Libretti londinesi" a cura di Lorenzo della Chà, Milano: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 2007. ISBN 88-7050-464-

External links

• Acocella, Joan, "Nights At The Opera: The Life of the Man who put Words to Mozart", The New Yorker, 8 January 2007
• Columbia Encyclopedia Lorenzo Da Ponte entry
• Encyclopaedia Britannica Lorenzo Da Ponte entry
• grovemusic.com Carter, Tim and Link, Dorothea, "Lorenzo Da Ponte", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed May 23 2006)
• Holden, Anthony, “The phoenix”, ‘’The Guardian’’ (London), 7 January 2007
• Keats, Jonathan, "Lorenzo's Toil: How the Son of an Impoverished Leatherworker Came to Write Mozart's Libretti", Washington Post, 16 July 2006 - book review
• "Lorenzo Da Ponte, Challenging the New World: An exhibition about Mozart's Librettist as Part of the Vienna Mozart Year 2006" Jewish Museum, Vienna
• Catholic Encyclopedia Lorenzo Da Ponte entry

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