DA PONTE, LORENZO

DA PONTE, LORENZO (1749–1838), poet and librettist, best remembered for his work with Mozart. Born Emanuele Conegliano, Da Ponte was given the family name of his sponsor, the bishop of Ceneda, upon the family's baptism in 1763. He was educated for the priesthood and ordained, taught briefly, and embarked upon a writer's career. Banished from Venice after a period of dissipation and a scandal, he reached Vienna in 1783 and was appointed librettist to the Imperial Opera. His first meeting with Mozart apparently came about through the Jewish banker and patron of the arts, Raimund von wetzlar . Da Ponte's libretti for Mozart were Lo sposo deluso (1783, unfinished); the oratorio Davidde penitente (1785, of uncertain authorship; see david , In Music); several concert arias; and the three great operas Le nozze di Figaro (1784), Don Giovanni (1787), and Cosí fan tutte (1789). Don Giovanni, although based on previous stage works, certainly owes a spiritual debt to Da Ponte's friendship with Casanova, whom he had known in Venice. In 1790 the emperor Joseph II died and Da Ponte, who had enjoyed his favor, was obliged to leave Vienna. In Trieste he abandoned his lightly borne clerical status by marrying Nancy (Anne Celestine) Grahl, the daughter of a German-English merchant. The ceremony was said to have been held "according to the Jewish rite," but the reports are ambiguous. After further wanderings and a stay in London, where he was a librettist at Drury Lane Theater, Da Ponte and his family went to the United States in 1805. He ultimately settled in New York, engaged unsuccessfully in various commercial ventures, and for some time taught Italian at Columbia College. He earned a place in American operatic history by persuading M. Garcia's visiting troupe to give the first American performance of Don Giovanni in 1825. He also raised money for building the Italian Opera House in New York in 1833. His autobiography, Storia compendiosa della vita di Lorenzo da Ponte (New York, 1807), was republished several times in a revised edition. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Nettl, Casanova und seine Zeit (1949), 133–79; O. Schneider and A. Algatzi, Mozart Handbuch (1962), index; J.L. Russo, Lorenzo da Ponte (Eng., 1922); A. Fitzlyon, Libertine Librettist (1955); DAB, 5 (1930). (Bathja Bayer)