Lorenzo Da Ponte
Encyclopedia
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
librettist
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's greatest operas, Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
and Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
.
European career
Lorenzo Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano in CenedaVittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto is a city and comune situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the northeast of the Italian peninsula, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers.-Geography:...
, in the Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
(now Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto is a city and comune situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the northeast of the Italian peninsula, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers.-Geography:...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
). He was Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
by birth. His parents were Geremia Conegliano and Rachele Pincherle. He had two brothers; Baruch (born in 1752) and Anania (born in 1754). Rachele died giving birth to Anania in 1754. Geremia Conegliano, the widowed father, converted himself and his three sons to Roman Catholicism in order to marry eighteen-year-old Orsola Pasqua Paietta. She was only four years older than Emanuele, then 14 years old. Emanuele took the name of Lorenzo da Ponte from the Bishop of Ceneda who baptised
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
him. He studied to be a teacher and was ordained a Catholic priest. While priest of the church of San Luca in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, he took a mistress, Anzoletta Bellaudi, who was married. Da Ponte delivered their first child, an event which he commented was "the kind of incident that happens every day." Reprimanded by the vicar-general, Da Ponte and Anzoletta opened a brothel. Charged with "public concubinage and rapito di donna onesta" (abduction of a respectable woman), Da Ponte was banished from Venice for fifteen years.
Da Ponte travelled to Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and applied for the post of Poet to the Theatres. Emperor Joseph II
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
asked how many plays he had written. Da Ponte replied "None, Sire," to which the Emperor replied "Good, good! Then we shall have a virgin muse."
As court librettist, he wrote texts in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and collaborated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
, and Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure today, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa. He has been called the Valencian Mozart.He was born in Valencia and studied...
.
Sometime around 1792, da Ponte was introduced to Ann Celestine Grahl (known more commonly as Nancy), a woman twenty years younger than him, who became his wife for the latter part of his life and was mother to da Ponte's four children: Louisa (1794), Fanny (1799), Joseph (1800), and Lorenzo (1804).
American career
With the death of Joseph II, Da Ponte lost his patron, and he received little interest from the new Emperor. He moved to PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
briefly, and then to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. He started a new career there as an opera producer. But he had little head for business, and eventually found himself in bankruptcy. To escape his creditors, he fled to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In the United States, Da Ponte settled in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
first, then Sunbury, Pennsylvania
Sunbury, Pennsylvania
Sunbury is a city in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city is located on the east bank of the Susquehanna River, just downstream of the confluence of its main and West branches. The population was 9,905 at the 2010 census...
, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons. He returned to New York to open a bookstore. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore was an American professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College, now Columbia University. He donated land from his family estate for the foundation of the General Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of Biblical learning and compiled a two-volume...
, and, through him, gained an appointment as the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He was the first Roman Catholic priest to be appointed to the faculty, and he was also the first to have been born a Jew. In New York he introduced opera and produced a performance of Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. He also introduced Gioachino Rossini's music in the U.S., through a concert tour with his niece Giulia da Ponte.
In 1828, at the age of 79, Da Ponte became a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
U.S. citizen
United States nationality law
Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The Immigration and Naturalization Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, citizenship of...
. He died in 1838 in New York; an enormous funeral ceremony was held in New York's old St. Patrick's Cathedral
St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, New York
The Basilica of Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral, or Old St. Patrick's, is located at 260-264 Mulberry Street between Prince and Houston Streets in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, with the primary entrance currently located on Mott Street...
on Mulberry Street. Some sources state that Da Ponte is buried in Calvary Cemetery
Calvary Cemetery, Queens
The Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery in Queens has the largest number of interments of any cemetery in the United States.The offices of Calvary Cemetery are located at 49-02 Laurel Hill Blvd. in Woodside in the New York City borough of Queens, New York. The cemetery is managed by the Trustees of...
in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, but that cemetery did not exist before 1848. Other sources say da Ponte was buried in lower Manhattan. Calvary Cemetery does contain a stone marker to serve as a memorial to Da Ponte.
All of Da Ponte's works were adaptations of pre-existing plots, as was common among librettists of the time, with the exceptions of L'arbore di Diana
L'arbore di Diana
L'arbore di Diana , is an opera composed in 1787 by Vicente Martín y Soler, with an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.Da Ponte's only other libretto not taken from an existing plot was Così fan tutte....
with Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure today, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa. He has been called the Valencian Mozart.He was born in Valencia and studied...
, and Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, which he began with Salieri, but completed with Mozart. However the quality of his elaboration gave them new life, in particular the Don Giovanni character, often seen in contrast with Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie , is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century...
as the archetypical libertine character.
Lorenzo Da Ponte's great-great-great-grandson, Durant da Ponte
Durant da Ponte
Durant da Ponte was a professor of American literature at the University of Tennessee. He was one of the founders of the Kentucky-Tennessee American Studies Association...
, was Professor of American Studies at the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
.
Works
- Operas:
- La Scuola de' gelosi (1783) — composer Antonio SalieriAntonio SalieriAntonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
- Il ricco d'un giornoIl ricco d'un giornoIl ricco d'un giorno is a dramma giocoso in three acts composed by Antonio Salieri. The Italian libretto was by Lorenzo Da Ponte after a work by Giovanni Bertati.-Performance history:...
(1784) — composer Antonio Salieri - Il burbero di buon cuoreIl burbero di buon cuoreIl burbero di buon cuore is a dramma giocoso or opera in two acts by Vicente Martín y Soler. The Italian libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte is based on the French comedy by Carlo Goldoni...
(1786, from the play by Carlo GoldoniCarlo GoldoniCarlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
) — composer Vicente Martín y SolerVicente Martín y SolerVicente Martín y Soler was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure today, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa. He has been called the Valencian Mozart.He was born in Valencia and studied... - Il Demogorgone ovvero Il filosofo confuso (1786) — composer Vincenzo RighiniVincenzo RighiniVincenzo Maria Righini was an Italian composer, singer and kapellmeister.- Biography :Righini was born at Bologna and studied singing and composition with Padre Martini in his home town. Initially he performed as a singer in Florence and Rome , however, according to Fétis he made his debut as a...
- Il finto cieco (1786) — composer Giuseppe GazzanigaGiuseppe GazzanigaGiuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Neapolitan school of opera composers. He composed fifty-one operas and is considered to be one of the last Italian opera buffa composers.-Biography:...
- Le nozze di FigaroThe Marriage of FigaroLe nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
(1786, from the play by Pierre BeaumarchaisPierre BeaumarchaisPierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary ....
) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music... - Una cosa raraUna cosa raraUna cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onestà is an opera by the composer Vicente Martín y Soler. It takes the form of a dramma giocoso in two acts. The libretto, by Lorenzo da Ponte, is based on the play La luna de la sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara. The opera was first performed at the Burgtheater,...
(1786, from the comedy La Luna della Sierra by Luis Vélez de GuevaraLuís Vélez de GuevaraLuis Vélez de Guevara was a Spanish dramatist and novelist.Velez de Guevara was born at Écija and was of Jewish converso descent...
) — composer Vicente Martín y Soler - Gli equivociGli equivociGli equivoci , is an opera buffa by Stephen Storace to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors....
(1786) — composer Stephen StoraceStephen StoraceStephen Storace was an English composer. His sister was the famous opera singer Nancy Storace. He was born in London in the Parish of St Marylebone to an English mother and Italian father... - L'arbore di DianaL'arbore di DianaL'arbore di Diana , is an opera composed in 1787 by Vicente Martín y Soler, with an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.Da Ponte's only other libretto not taken from an existing plot was Così fan tutte....
(1787) — composer Vicente Martín y Soler - Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don GiovanniDon GiovanniDon Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
(1787, from the opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Axur, re d'OrmusAxur, re d'OrmusAxur, re d'Ormus is an operatic dramma tragicomico in five acts by Antonio Salieri. The libretto was by Lorenzo da Ponte....
(1787/88, translation of the libretto TarareTarareTarare is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France.It lies on the Turdine river, 28 miles west-northwest of Lyon by rail.-History:Pop...
by Pierre 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 pastoralPastoralThe adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
by Giovanni Battista GuariniGiovanni Battista GuariniGiovanni Battista Guarini was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.- Life :He was born in Ferrara, and spent his early life both in Padua and Ferrara, entering the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in 1567...
) — composer Antonio Salieri - La CifraLa cifraLa cifra is an opera by Antonio Salieri in two acts, set to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte.The work, a dramma giocoso, is set in Scotland, and was written for Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, the first Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte....
(1789) — composer Antonio Salieri - Così fan tutteCosì fan tutteCosì fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(1789/90) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Caffettiera bizzarra (1790) — composer Joseph WeiglJoseph WeiglJoseph Weigl , was an Austrian composer and conductor.The son of Joseph Franz Weigl , the principal cellist in the orchestra of the Esterházy family, he was born in Eisenstadt and studied music under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri...
- 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
- La Scuola de' gelosi (1783) — composer Antonio Salieri
- Cantatas and Oratorios:
- Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) — composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri and "Cornetti" (lost)
- Il Davidde (1791) — Pasticcio from works by various composers
- Hymn to America — composer Antonio BagioliAntonio BagioliGiuseppe Antonio Bagioli of Bologna, Italy and New York City, New York was a successful composer, music teacher and author, and the father of Teresa Bagioli Sickles, wife of Dan Sickles, central figures in a notorious murder trial in 1859.He is sometimes confused with Antonio Bagioli , a...
- Poetry:
- Letter of complaint in blank verse to Leopold II, Holy Roman EmperorLeopold II, Holy Roman EmperorLeopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to 1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa...
- 18 sonnets in commemoration of his wife (1832)
- Letter of complaint in blank verse to Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
He did translations from English into Italian, and also wrote several books of elementary instruction in the Italian language. He published an autobiography, Memorie (see Bibliography), and History of the Florentine Republic and the Medici (2 vols., 1833).
External links
- Acocella, Joan, "Nights At The Opera: The Life of the Man who put Words to Mozart", The New Yorker, 8 January 2007
- 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