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The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte--Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impre

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Rodgers and Hart, Lerner and Lowe, but Mozart and Da Ponte? Yes, the name is Da Ponte, and few who read Rodney Bolt's stunning examination of the librettist's life will forget it.

One would be hard pressed to find someone entering the worl in less promising circumstances than Da Ponte. The year is 1749; the place is the Venetian Republic. Born the son of a poor leather worker he spent his early years among some fifty other Jews in Ceneda's ghetto, and was named Emanuele Conegliano. Venice was markedly anti-Semitic - Jews were required to wear red headgear in public, they couldn't work for Christians, only certain trades and professions were allowed to them, and they were confined to the ghetto at night. So it was that Emanuele's father decided to improve their lot, both politically and financially, by embracing Catholicism. Then, as was the custom, the family would take the surname of the bishop who baptized them and, as the eldest son, Emanuele would also take the bishop's first name too. He became Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Lorenzo embraced his new faith with exuberance or, as the author notes, his pronouncements "may be the sincere exaltations of a fervent new convert, but they carry more of the wide-eyed wiliness of a fourteen-year-old who has realized on which side his bread is lavishly being buttered."

He was sent to seminary to study and in 1773 was ordained a priest, which did nothing to hamper his relationships with women (some say his scorecard matched that of his friend, Casanova). Venice was a pleasure palace at that time albeit a dying one. And, Lorenzo's penchant for carnal enjoyment eventually resulted in his exile from Venice.

He traveled to Vienna where Emperor Joseph II named him poet for a court opera company. It was here that he met Mozart and the two collaborated on some of the greatest operas the world has known: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. Regrettably Joseph's death brought an end to the opera company and Da Ponte sought greener pastures in London. At that time he was married to a younger woman, and was barely able to keep their bodies and souls together by selling books. America beckoned.

How fascinating it is to see our cities through the eyes of Da Ponte, especially 19th century New York, where he found work as a teacher and bookseller. He would see the Opera House open in 1833. Later, "Like his friends Mozart and Casanova, Lorenzo da Ponte was buried in an unmarked grave."

You needn't be an opera lover to enjoy this dramatic story of a life lived to the fullest. Bolt is an impressive historian and an assiduous researcher. The Librettist of Venice is a remarkable work.

- Gail Cooke

My initial interest in this book was to learn more about the person who wrote those exquisite librettos for Mozart's Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Cosi Fan Tutte. I was initially somewhat disappointed that the author did not dedicate more space to his relationship with Mozart, but this disappointment dissipated after reading about the rest of DaPonte's life and how he reinvented himself over and over again, in Venice, in Vienna, in London, and finally in New York City. He was a man born way before his time and certainly someone we should read about in admiration, despite his many flaws. The book is very well written and holds your interest from beginning to end.

I enjoyed this book. It tells the story of a man I had never head of before, so the novelty of the subject was an attraction.
If you love stories of opera, the effect of the American revolution on Europe, and insight into the court of Joseph II
in Vienna at the time of Mozart, this is a good book. An interesting angle is that the subject was born a Jew in a village near Venice, was baptized as a child and became a Catholic Priest. His subsequent career was marked by abuse of
his priestly vows, but it seems he simply used this path out of poverty, much the same way as a poor boy might use an education in a military academy followed by brief military service.

Finally, the coda to the book finds the protaganist in New York City as Columbia University's first professor of Italian. In retrospect the entire saga, though footnoted and clearly researched with care, has the aura of an old man's memories of
his wild and exciting youth hobnobbing with princes, priests,
wild women, famous composers and poets in distant lands.

Lorenzo da Ponte defied his time, and later, his age. In his era, most people stayed put, and if they moved, they stayed in the new place. People generally had one career- that of their father(s). Having relocated and reinvented himself, several times, da Ponte lived two generations beyond his contemporaries. At his death he was more than twice Mozart's final age. He outlived his wife by a generation, and he was a generation her senior!

He was busy every moment with optimistic plans and schemes. When things worked out he had high highs. He had low lows when they didn't. Nothing deterred him - ever. He died a risk taking octogenarian. Something about his personality garnered great friends and stirred up enemies.

Bolt is wonderful in describing places da Ponte lived in their time. In Vienna, through the largesse of the Emperor Joseph, a theater could operate independent of the crown, a privilege easily rescinded. I read and re-read the different parts about how the words of Thomas Jefferson resounded in Europe. Like the descriptions of late 18th century Vienna, Prague, the Italian cities and London, the descriptions of early 19th century Philadelphia and NYC are marvelous.

Don Giovani played here in Hawaii to a sold out crowd last week. I wonder how many of those in attendance knew the librettists' name? How many this wonderful story of his life?

Lorenzo Da Ponte was an early Venetian librettist well known in the late 1700s: he was Mozart's poet, Casanova's friend, and would serve as librettist of three of his friend Mozart's most controversial operas. He went on to become the first professor of Italian at Columbia University: THE LIBRETTIST OF VENICE traces a varied, involving life but also provides a fine history and set of social insights of his times, recreating the politics and world of early Vienna through the changing career of a remarkable man. Engrossing.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I have read several books on music history but none has been such a delicious read as this. This book traces the history of the person responsible for the side-splitting humor in some of Mozart's best operas. I agree with the other reviews on the Amazon.com website. A beautifully researched and crafted book that makes a real person's life read like a wonderful novel.

Lorenzo Da Ponte was a courageous, adventurous and passionate man--
and a brilliant poet and librettist. Reading about his life and travels,
his trials and failures, is exciting and inspiring!
This is one of the most riveting biographies I have read.
I recommend it highly to anyone---even if you are not an opera lover.
This is the story of a man who had to reinvent himself again and again.
A man who took risks, which sometimes brought him acclaim and money,
and sometimes left him having to start again. He never gave up.
Beautifully written, and so evocative, it is as if you are there for it all. Enjoy this book!

This is a wonderful book about the fascinating and sexy late 1700s & early 1800s music world. Who new that Father Da Ponte came to the US in 1805 and jump started opera in America (after running a grocery store in Sunbury, PA)? Well researched and amusingly written, The Librettist of Venice is great fun from start to finish.

Da Ponte was an amazing character. His story is told in a funny, understated style that is informative and entertaining. A great read.

... or even for Salieri partisans, this biography of Lorenzo Da Ponte will be of solid interest, simply because Da Ponte was a fascinating figure. Born Jewish in a small town of the Veneto in 1749, Da Ponte was part mountebank part genius, part roué part family man, charming and insufferable, the archetype of the Enlightenment arriviste, destitute and beggarly one month, pampered court poet the next, ever ready to cadge, scheme, slander, and seduce ... a narcissistic opportunist not unlike his older friend Casanova or his own fictional Don Giovanni. His name is remembered, of course, for the one worthy accomplishment of his mottled career; he wrote 28 librettos for 11 composers, including three of Mozart's masterpieces: Nozzi di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosí Fan Tutte. But then, abandoning Vienna, Venice, and London, Da Ponte became, of all things, an Italian grocer in New York, at a time when Italian immigrants numbered in the scores rather than the tens of thousands of later years. He gave private Italian lessons, opened a bookstore, became friends with Clement Clarke Moore (the poet of Night Before Christmas), and, through him, gained an appointment as the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College. He was the first Roman Catholic priest -- though married in a synagogue in Trieste -- to be appointed to the faculty, and also the first to have been born a Jew. In New York he introduced opera and produced a performance of Don Giovanni. He also introduced Gioachino Rossini's music in the U.S., through a concert tour with his niece Giulia da Ponte. In short, one remarkable character!

Unfortunately, for readers with little interest in the history of opera, this lengthy biography based chiefly on Da Ponte's own memoirs, which are still in print, may be disappointing. Da Ponte was reputed to be a compelling story-teller; author Rodney Bolt should have learned from his subject. Bolt's prose is 'plain vanilla non-fat'. Bolt recognizes humor from a distance but lacks the timing and panache to make his own writing humorous. Da Ponte's life and times were as flamboyant as the painting of the Grand Canal on the book jacket suggests, but Bolt's stolid style renders everything matter-of-fact. Unless you are as earnestly interested in the subject of opera as I am -- I wanted insight into the mode of collaboration between composer and librettist, between Mozart and Da Ponte -- I fear you'll find this book awfully dry.