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Lorenzo Da Ponte

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Adapted from the English Wikipedia article Lorenzo Da Ponte, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 11 August 2025
Lorenzo Da Ponte
Born
Emanuele Conegliano

Template:Birth date
Ceneda, Republic of Venice (now Vittorio Veneto, Italy)
DiedAugust 17, 1838(1838-08-17) (aged 89)
New York City, United States
Occupation(s)Opera librettist, poet, Roman Catholic clergyman, professor of Italian literature
Known forLibrettist for Mozart's operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte; first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University; introducing Italian opera to the United States

Lorenzo Da Ponte (originally named Emanuele Conegliano; 10 March 1749–17 August 1838) was an Italian-born, later naturalized American, opera librettist, poet, and Roman Catholic clergyman. He crafted libretti for 28 operas composed by 11 different musicians, notably including three of Mozart's most celebrated operas: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790).

Da Ponte was appointed as the inaugural professor of Italian literature at Columbia University and, together with Manuel Garcia, played a pivotal role in bringing Italian opera to the United States. He also maintained a long-standing friendship with Casanova.

Early career

Originating from Ceneda in the Republic of Venice (now Vittorio Veneto), Da Ponte was born into a Jewish family. In 1764, his father converted to Roman Catholicism in order to remarry, prompting Emanuele to adopt the name Lorenzo Da Ponte after the bishop who baptized him.

With the bishop’s patronage, Da Ponte and his siblings attended the seminary in Ceneda. Following the bishop’s death in 1768, Lorenzo relocated to the seminary in Portogruaro. There he received Minor Orders in 1770, became a literature professor, and was ordained a priest in 1773. During this time, he began composing poetry in both Italian and Latin.

In 1773, Da Ponte moved to Venice where he taught Latin, Italian, and French. Despite his clerical status, he led a morally lax lifestyle; while assigned to San Luca church, he fathered two children with a mistress. In 1777 he encountered Giacomo Casanova, forging a friendship that endured for more than twenty years.

By 1779 Da Ponte faced legal charges including "public concubinage" and "abduction of a respectable woman," alongside accusations related to involvement with brothel entertainments. Convicted, he was sentenced to exile from Venice for fifteen years.

Vienna and London

Subsequently, Da Ponte settled in Gorizia (then part of Austria), living as a writer under noble patronage. In 1781, believing he had been invited to serve at the Saxon court in Dresden, he instead received an offer to work translating libretti for the theatre. He obtained an introduction letter to composer Antonio Salieri. In 1784 he reunited with Casanova in Vienna, providing financial support and receiving advice from him.

With Salieri’s backing, Da Ponte secured a position as librettist at Vienna’s Italian Theatre. Supported by banker Raimund Wetzlar von Plankenstern—a patron also connected to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—he collaborated with Mozart, Salieri, and Vicente Martín y Soler as court poet.

Da Ponte penned libretti for Mozart’s principal Italian operas: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790), as well as Soler’s Una cosa rara. Additionally, he contributed to the cantata Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785), jointly composed by Salieri, Mozart, and Cornetti. His libretti typically adapted existing narratives—a common practice at that time—with notable exceptions such as L'arbore di Diana and Così fan tutte, which he initially developed with Salieri before completing with Mozart. His adept expansions breathed new life into these stories.

Regarding Figaro, Da Ponte prefaced his work by explaining:

I have not produced a translation [of Beaumarchais], but rather an imitation... It was necessary to reduce sixteen characters down to eleven... omit an entire act... Although efforts were made to keep it concise, the opera remains lengthy... Our objective is to authentically depict various passions and introduce a novel form of spectacle...

Only one address linked to Da Ponte’s time in Vienna is documented: in 1788 he leased a three-room apartment at Heidenschuß 316 for 200 Gulden.

After Emperor Joseph II passed away in 1790, Da Ponte lost his patronage and his role as court poet. By 1791 he was dismissed from Imperial Service amidst political intrigues and received no assistance from Emperor Leopold II. Still prohibited from returning to Venice until late 1794, he traveled elsewhere. In Trieste he met Nancy Grahl, daughter of an English Jewish chemist; although they never married, they had four children together.

In August 1792 Da Ponte set out for Paris via Prague and Dresden carrying a letter of recommendation from Joseph II addressed to Queen Marie Antoinette. Upon discovering France’s political upheaval and the royal family’s arrest, he altered course heading instead to London with Grahl and their two children.

He encountered Casanova once again in Vienna; observing his friend’s impoverished state, Da Ponte forgave a debt owed by him. Casanova traveled with Da Ponte to Dresden while Da Ponte served as Secretary to Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein, Beethoven’s patron, advising against Paris in favor of London.

Da Ponte later recalled Casanova’s imprisonment at Venice’s Piombi prison.

Following initial difficulties in England—including working as a grocer and teaching Italian—Da Ponte became librettist at London’s King’s Theatre in 1803. He continued his involvement in theatre and publishing until financial hardships compelled him to flee with Grahl and their children to the United States in 1805.

Career in the United States (1805–1838)

Upon his arrival in the United States in 1805, Da Ponte initially settled in New York City and briefly resided in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where he operated a grocery store and offered Italian language lessons while conducting business ventures in Philadelphia. After returning to New York, he established a bookstore and formed a friendship with Clement Clarke Moore, through whom he obtained an unpaid appointment as the inaugural professor of Italian literature at Columbia College.

He holds the distinction of being both the first Roman Catholic priest and the first individual of Jewish upbringing to join Columbia’s academic staff. In New York, Da Ponte played a pivotal role in introducing opera to American audiences, staging the first complete U.S. performance of Don Giovanni in 1825, featuring Maria García (later Malibran) in the role of Zerlina. Additionally, he brought the music of Gioachino Rossini to American listeners during a concert tour accompanied by his niece Giulia Da Ponte.

Starting in 1807, Da Ponte began composing his Memoirs, which were published in 1823 and characterized more as an adventurous account than an introspective autobiography. At the age of 79, in 1828, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

In 1833, at 84 years old, Da Ponte established the first opera house in the U.S. specifically constructed for that purpose—the Italian Opera House located at Leonard and Church Streets in New York City—recognized as superior to any previous theatrical venue in the city. Despite this, due to limited managerial skills, his opera company survived only two seasons before financial difficulties led to its sale. The building was renamed the National Theater in 1836 and underwent reconstruction twice following fires in 1839 and 1841. Da Ponte’s opera house served as a foundation for later institutions such as New York’s Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera.

Da Ponte passed away in New York City in 1838; his funeral at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral attracted significant attendance. Initially interred at a Catholic Cemetery on 11th Street—which was later paved over—his remains were relocated to Calvary Cemetery in 1909. Although the precise location of his grave remains unknown, a memorial marker commemorates his final resting place.

In 2009, Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura released Io, Don Giovanni, a semi-fictionalized film that intertwines Da Ponte’s life story with his libretto for Don Giovanni.

Da Ponte's libretti

Da Ponte’s libretti are distinguished by their close collaboration with composers and their focus on sharp character development and wit rather than intense emotional drama. Richard Taruskin notes Mozart’s determination to engage Da Ponte despite competition from Italian librettists like Salieri. Mozart sought to combine elements of opera buffa comedy with a contrasting opera seria female role—a blend that Da Ponte skillfully transformed into compelling theatrical drama.

According to David Cairns, Da Ponte made significant improvements to the original Don Giovanni scenario by Giovanni Bertati, enhancing its wit, brevity, and structural cohesion to better complement Mozart’s score. Music historian David Conway proposes that Da Ponte’s intricate personal background influenced his sophisticated use of disguise and irony throughout his libretti.

Family

Da Ponte fathered five children with Nancy Grahl:

  • Louisa (Da Ponte) Clossey (1798–1823)
  • Frances (Da Ponte) Anderson (1799–1844)
  • Joseph Da Ponte (1800–1821)
  • Lorenzo Luigi Da Ponte (1804–1840)
  • Charles Grahl Da Ponte (born 1806)

Frances wed Knight Commander Henry James Anderson, thereby connecting the family to notable American genealogies. Their offspring, Major Elbert Ellery Anderson (1833–1903), married Augusta Chauncey, who descended from Commodore Isaac Chauncey and Harvard President Charles Chauncy. Major Anderson was also related to Founding Father William Ellery and was a cousin to the affluent Elbert Jefferson Anderson.

Peter Chauncey Anderson, son of Major Elbert Ellery Anderson, united in marriage with Mary Yale Ogden, which linked the family to the influential Yale and Ogden lineages. Mary was kin to Edith Ogden, spouse of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison IV, and cousin to President William Henry Harrison as well as Senator Aaron Ogden, former governor of New Jersey.

Works

  • Opera libretti:
  • Cantatas and oratorios:
    • Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) – collaborative composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri, and "Cornetti"
    • Il Davidde (1791) – a pasticcio assembled from various composers' works
    • Hymn to America – composed by Antonio Bagioli
  • Poetry:
  • Additional contributions:
    • Italian translations from English texts
    • Multiple basic Italian language instructional volumes
    • Autobiographical work titled Memorie

Sources

  • Angermüller, Rudolph. "Da Ponte, Lorenzo." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie, London: Macmillan, 1990. ISBN 0333231112.
  • Dumazet de Pontigny, Victor. "Ponte, Lorenzo da." Grove 1900, vol. 3, p. 15.
  • Cairns, David. Mozart and his Operas. London: Penguin, 2006. ISBN 9780713994919.
  • Conway, David. Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN 9781107015388.
  • Da Ponte, Lorenzo. Memoirs, translated by E. Abbott, introduction by Charles Rosen, edited by A. Livingstone. New York: New York Review of Books, 2000. ISBN 9780940322356.
  • Einstein, Alfred. Mozart: His Character, His Work, translated by A. Mendel and N. Broder. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962. ISBN 0195007328.
  • Holden, Anthony. The Man Who Wrote Mozart: The Extraordinary Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte. London: Orion Publishing, 2006. ISBN 0-7538-2180-X.
  • Taruskin, Richard. Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780195384826.

Further reading

  • Baker, Felicity (ed.). Don Giovanni's Reasons: Thoughts on a Masterpiece. Bern: Peter Lang, 2021.
  • 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 1-59691-118-2.
  • FitzLyon, April. Lorenzo Da Ponte: A Biography of Mozart's Librettist. London: John Calder; New York: Riverrun Press, 1982. ISBN 0-7145-3783-7.
  • Hodges, Sheila. Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Life and Times of Mozart's Librettist. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. ISBN 0-299-17874-9.
  • Jewish Museum Vienna (publisher). Lorenzo Da Ponte – Challenging the New World. Exhibition catalogue from the Jewish Museum. ISBN 978-3-7757-1748-9.
  • "Original Biographical Sketches: Lorenzo Da Ponte, of Ceneda." New-York Mirror, vol. XVI no.14 (September 29, 1838), p.1.
  • Steptoe, Anthony. Mozart–Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and Musical Background to "Le nozze di Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "Così fan tutte". New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-19-313215-X.

External links

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