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Lorenzo Da Ponte (born Emanuele Conegliano 10 March 1749 in Ceneda, Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice

The Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice . It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797....
 (now Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto

Vittorio Veneto is a city situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the Cardinal direction of the Italian Peninsula, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers....
, Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
) – 17 August 1838 in Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
, New York) was an Venetian
Republic of Venice

The Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice . It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797....
 librettist
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 and poet.

Life
Emanuele Conegliano, a Venetian Jew
Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
 by birth, was born on March 10, 1749 to 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.






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Lorenzo Da Ponte (born Emanuele Conegliano 10 March 1749 in Ceneda, Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice

The Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice . It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797....
 (now Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto

Vittorio Veneto is a city situated in the Province of Treviso, in the region of Veneto, Italy, in the Cardinal direction of the Italian Peninsula, between the Piave and the Livenza rivers....
, Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
) – 17 August 1838 in Manhattan
Manhattan

Manhattan is one of the five borough of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.With a United States Census of 1,620,867 living in a land area of 22.96 square miles , Manhattan, coextensive with New York County, is the most population density county in the United States, w...
, New York) was an Venetian
Republic of Venice

The Most Serene Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice . It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century AD until the year 1797....
 librettist
Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, sacred or secular oratorio and cantata, Musical theater, and ballet....
 and poet.

Life


Emanuele Conegliano, a Venetian Jew
Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts....
 by birth, was born on March 10, 1749 to 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 who was only four years Emanuele's senior. The 14-year-old Emanuele Conegliano took the name Lorenzo Da Ponte, the name of the bishop of Ceneda who administered his baptism
Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted as a full member of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered....
. He studied to be a teacher and was ordained a priest
Priest

A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities....
. While priest of the church of San Luca in Venice
Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy, the capital city of the Italian regions Veneto, a population of 271,251 . Together with Padua, Italy, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area ....
, he took a mistress, Anzoletta Bellaudi, who was married. Da Ponte delivered their first child, on 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 rapto 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 in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west....
, and applied for Poet to the Theatres. Asked by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor....
 how many plays he had written, Da Ponte replied "None, Sire", to which he replied "Good, good! Then we shall have a virgin muse.".

As court librettist, he composed in French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
, German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
, Spanish
Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
, and Italian
Italian language

Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....
, and collaborated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
, Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri , was a Republic of Venice composer and Conducting. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time....
 and Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler

Vicente Mart?n y Soler was a Valencia n 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....
.

Da Ponte moved to Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, New York City
New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
 and Philadelphia, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons before returning to New York to open a bookstore. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore

Clement Clarke Moore is the credited author of A Visit from St. Nicholas .Clement Clarke Moore was most famous in his own day as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College of Columbia University ....
, 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 university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
. He was the first faculty member to have been born a Jew, and also the first to have been ordained a priest.

Sometime around 1792 Da Ponte was introduced to Ann Celestine Grahl (known more commonly as Nancy)who would become his wife for the latter part of his life and would be mother to Da Ponte's four children; Louisa (born in 1794), Fanny (born in 1799), Joseph (born in 1800), and Lorenzo L. Da Ponte jr. (born in 1804).

In 1828, at the age of 79, Da Ponte became a naturalized
Naturalization

Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship or nationality by somebody who was not a citizen or national of that country when he or she was born....
 citizen
United States nationality law

Article_I_of_the_US_Constitution#Enumerated_powers of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization....
 of the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. At his death in 1838, an enormous funeral ceremony was held in New York's old St. Patrick's Cathedral
St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, New York

Saint Patrick's Old Cathedral, or Old St. Patrick's, is located at 260-264 Mulberry Street between Prince and Houston Streets in Manhattan, in New York, New York....
 on Mulberry Street. Da Ponte is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery
Green-Wood Cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Kings County, New York, now in Brooklyn. It was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S....
 in Brooklyn.

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 Mart?n y Soler, with an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.Da Ponte's only other libretto not taken from an existing plot was Cos? fan tutte....
 with Vicente Martín y Soler
Vicente Martín y Soler

Vicente Mart?n y Soler was a Valencia n 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....
, and Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte

Cos? fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte....
, which he began with Salieri, but completed with Mozart.

Lorenzo Da Ponte is the great great great grandfather of Durant da Ponte
Durant da Ponte

Durant da Ponte, a direct descendant of Mozart's librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, was a respected professor of American literature at the University of Tennessee....
.

Works

  • Operas:
    • Ifigenia in Tauride (1783) — composer Christoph Willibald Gluck
      Christoph Willibald Gluck

      Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years....
      )
    • La Scuola de' gelosi (1783) — composer Antonio Salieri
      Antonio Salieri

      Antonio Salieri , was a Republic of Venice composer and Conducting. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time....
    • Il Ricco d'un giorno (1784) — composer Antonio Salieri
    • Il Burbero di buon cuore (1786, from the play by Carlo Goldoni
      Carlo Goldoni

      Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was a celebrated Republic of Venice playwright and librettist, whom critics today rank among the European theatre's greatest authors....
      ) — composer Vicente Martín y Soler
      Vicente Martín y Soler

      Vicente Mart?n y Soler was a Valencia n 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....
    • Il Demogorgone ovvero Il filosofo confuso (1786) — composer Vincenzo Righini
    • Il finto cieco (1786) — composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga
      Giuseppe Gazzaniga

      Giuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Teatro di San Carlo#The great age of Neapolitan opera of opera composers. He composed fiftyone operas and is considered to be one of the last Italy opera buffa composers....
    • Le nozze di Figaro
      The Marriage of Figaro

      Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K?chel-Verzeichnis, is an opera buffa composed in 1786_in_music#Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro ....
       (1786, from the play by Pierre Beaumarchais) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
      Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
    • Una cosa rara
      Una cosa rara

      Una cosa rara, ossia Bellezza ed onest? is an opera by the composer Vicente Mart?n y Soler. It takes the form of a dramma giocoso in two acts....
       (1786, from the comedy La Luna della Sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara
      Luís Vélez de Guevara

      Luis V?lez de Guevara , Spanish people dramatist and novelistHe was born at ?cija and was of Jewish converso descent. See Antonio Dominiguez Ortiz, "Los judeoconversos en Espa?a y Am?rica." Madrid, 1971....
      ) — composer Vicente Martín y Soler
    • Gli equivoci (1786) — composer Stephen Storace
    • L'arbore di Diana
      L'arbore di Diana

      L'arbore di Diana , is an opera composed in 1787 by Vicente Mart?n y Soler, with an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.Da Ponte's only other libretto not taken from an existing plot was Cos? fan tutte....
       (1787) — composer Vicente Martín y Soler
    • Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don Giovanni
      Don Giovanni

      Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with Italian language libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered in the Estates Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787 in music....
       (1787, from the opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    • Axur, re d'Ormus
      Axur, re d'Ormus

      Axur, re d'Ormus is an operatic dramma tragicomico in five acts by Antonio Salieri. The libretto was by Lorenzo da Ponte.Axur is the Italian version of Salieri 1787 France work Tarare which had a libretto by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais....
       (1787/88, translation of the libretto Tarare
      Tarare

      Tarare is a town and communes of France of east-central France, in the Rh?ne departments of France, on the Turdine river, 28 m. W.N.W. of Lyon by rail....
       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 pastoral
      Pastoral

      Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food....
       by Giovanni Battista Guarini
      Giovanni Battista Guarini

      Giovanni Battista Guarini was an Italy poet, dramatist, and diplomat....
      ) — composer Antonio Salieri
    • La Cifra (1789) — composer Antonio Salieri
    • Così fan tutte
      Così fan tutte

      Cos? fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was written by Lorenzo da Ponte....
       (1789/90) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    • La Caffettiera bizzarra (1790) — composer Joseph Weigl
      Joseph Weigl

      Joseph Weigl , was an Austria composer and conducting.The son of Joseph Franz Weigl , the principal cellist in the orchestra of the Esterh?zy 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


  • Cantatas and Oratorios:
    • Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) — composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri (lost)
    • Davidde penitente (1785) — composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    • Il Davidde (1791) — Pasticcio from works by various composers
    • Hymn to America — composer Antonio Bagioli
      Antonio Bagioli

      Giuseppe Antonio Bagioli of Bologna, Italy and New York City, New York was a successful composer, Music education and author, and the father of Teresa Bagioli Sickles, wife of Dan Sickles, central figures in a notorious murder trial in 1859....


  • Poetry:
    • Letter of complaint in blank verse to Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor
      Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

      Leopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1790 to 1792, King of Hungary, archduke of Austria, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790....
       
    • 18 sonnets in commemoration of his wife (1832)


Bibliography

  • FitzLyon, April, The Libertine Librettist (1955)
  • 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
    Anthony Holden

    Anthony Holden is a British journalist, broadcaster and writer, particularly known as a biographer of the British Royal family and of artists including...
    , The Man Who Wrote Mozart: The Extraordinary Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte , London: Orion Publishing Company, 2007 ISBN 075382180X
  • Hüttler, Michael (ed.): Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vienna: Böhlau, 2007 (Maske & Kothurn, 52/4) (ISBN 978-3-205-77617-8)
  • 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 88-7050-464-6


External links

  • Lorenzo Da Ponte entry
  • Lorenzo Da Ponte entry
  • Carter, Tim and Link, Dorothea, "Lorenzo Da Ponte", Grove Music Online
    Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

    The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopaedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music....
    , ed. L. Macy (accessed May 23 2006)
  • — book review
  • Jewish Museum, Vienna
  • Lorenzo Da Ponte entry