GetWiki
Lorenzo Da Ponte
ARTICLE SUBJECTS
being →
database →
ethics →
fiction →
history →
internet →
language →
linux →
logic →
method →
news →
policy →
purpose →
religion →
science →
software →
truth →
unix →
wiki →
ARTICLE TYPES
essay →
feed →
help →
system →
wiki →
ARTICLE ORIGINS
critical →
forked →
imported →
original →
Lorenzo Da Ponte
please note:
- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
{{Short description|Italian opera librettist, poet, and Roman Catholic priest (1749â1838)}}File:Lorenzo da Ponte.jpg|thumb|Engraving by Michele Pekenino after Nathaniel RogersNathaniel RogersLorenzo Da Ponte{{efn|{{IPAc-en|UK|d|ÉË|_|Ë|p|É|n|t|eɪ}} {{respell|dah|_|PON|tay}},ENCYCLOPEDIA,weblinkweblink dead, May 8, 2021, Da Ponte, Lorenzo, Lexico UK English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, {{IPAc-en|US|d|É|_|Ë|p|É|n|t|i}} {{respell|dÉ|_|PON|tee}},AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY, Da Ponte, 4 August 2019, WEB,weblink Da Ponte, Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins, 4 August 2019, {{IPA-it|loËrÉntso da (p)Ëponte|lang}}.}} ({{ne|Emanuele Conegliano}}; 10 March 1749{{spaced ndash}}17 August 1838JOURNAL, The Baltimore Sun, Signor Lorenzo Daponte died on Friday, August 21, 1838, ) was a Venetian, later American, opera librettist, poet and Roman Catholic priest. He wrote the libretti for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's most celebrated operas: The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790).He was the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University, and with Manuel Garcia, the first to introduce Italian opera to America.Music View, Did Casanova Lend a Helping Hand?, The New York Times, Donald Henahan, Nov. 10, 1985Smith, Howard Jay (2022). The Man Who Brought Opera to America, American Heritage Magazine, Vol. 67, Issue 3. Da Ponte was also a close friend of Mozart and Casanova.A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Ponte, Lorenzo da, George Grove Ponte, Lorenzo da by Victor de Pontigny- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
- it has been imported raw for GetWiki
Early career
File:Canaletto - Bucentaur's return to the pier by the Palazzo Ducale - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Republic of VeniceRepublic of VeniceLorenzo Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano in 1749 in Ceneda in the Republic of Venice (now Vittorio Veneto, Italy). He was Jewish by birth, the eldest of three sons.WEB, Lorenzo Da Ponte's Jewish roots,weblink 2021-06-14, www.jewishindependent.ca, In 1764, his father, Geronimo Conegliano, then a widower, converted himself and his family to Roman Catholicism in order to marry a Catholic woman. Emanuele, as was the custom, took the name of Lorenzo Da Ponte from the bishop of Ceneda who baptised him.Thanks to the bishop, the three Conegliano brothers studied at the Ceneda seminary. The bishop died in 1768, after which Lorenzo moved to the seminary at Portogruaro, where he took Minor Orders in 1770 and became Professor of Literature. He was ordained a priest in 1773. He began at this period writing poetry in Italian and Latin, including an ode to wine, "Ditirambo sopra gli odori".{{harvp|Angermüller|1990}}In 1773 Da Ponte moved to Venice, where he made a living as a teacher of Latin, Italian and French. Although he was a Catholic priest, the young man led a dissolute life. While priest of the church of San Luca, he took a mistress, with whom he had two children. In 1777, he met for the first time Giacomo Casanova, who will become a close friend for over 20 years, and be featured in his memoirs.Maynial, Edouard (1911). Casanova and his time, Chapter Lorenzo Da Ponte, Chapman & Hall, London, p. 208-209 Both were Venetian adventurers, kindred spirits, and seducers.Casanovaâs Homecoming, Minnesota Opera, Opera Box, Imagineppera.org, 2010, p. 45At Da Ponte's 1779 trial, where he was charged with "public concubinage" and "abduction of a respectable woman", it was alleged that he had been living in a brothel and organizing the entertainments there. He was found guilty and banished for fifteen years from Venice.{{sfnp|Holden|2006|loc=34â39}}Vienna and London
File:'The Molo, Venice', oil on canvas painting by Canaletto, high resolution.jpg|260px|thumb|Painting of Venice, Italy, circa 1735, by artist CanalettoCanalettoDa Ponte moved to Gorizia (Görz), then part of Austria, where he lived as a writer, attaching himself to the leading noblemen and cultural patrons of the city. In 1781 he believed (falsely) that he had an invitation from his friend Caterino Mazzolà , the poet of the Saxon court, to take up a post at Dresden, only to be disabused when he arrived there. Mazzolà however offered him work at the theatre translating libretti and recommended that he seek to develop writing skills. He also gave him a letter of introduction to the composer Antonio Salieri.{{sfnp|Holden|2006|loc=50â55}} In 1784, he met his friend Casanova once again in Vienna, and with his newly made fortune, financed him and received his counsels.Maynial, Edouard (1911). Casanova and his time, Chapter Lorenzo Da Ponte, Chapman & Hall, London, p. 208-211With the help of Salieri, Da Ponte applied for and obtained the post of librettist to the Italian Theatre in Vienna. Here he also found a patron in the banker Raimund Wetzlar von Plankenstern, benefactor of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As court poet and librettist in Vienna, he collaborated with Mozart, Salieri and Vicente MartÃn y Soler.File:Mozart by Joseph Grassi 1785.jpg|thumb|155px|Mozart's portrait, Da Ponte wrote numbers of his libretti, including The Marriage of FigaroThe Marriage of FigaroDa Ponte wrote the libretti for Mozart's most popular Italian operas, The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790), and Soler's Una cosa rara, as well as the text on which the cantata Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (collaboratively composed in 1785 by Salieri, Mozart and Cornetti) is based. 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 with Soler, and Così fan tutte, which he began with Salieri, but completed with Mozart. However the quality of his elaboration gave them new life.In the case of Figaro, Da Ponte included a preface to the libretto that hints at his technique and objectives in libretto writing, as well as his close working with the composer:I have not made a translation [of Beaumarchais], but rather an imitation, or let us say an extract. ... I was compelled to reduce the sixteen original characters to eleven, two of which can be played by a single actor and to omit, in addition to one whole act, many effective scenes. ... In spite, however, of all the zeal and care on the part of both the composer and myself to be brief, the opera will not be one of the shortest. ... Our excuse will be the variety of development of this drama, ... to paint faithfully and in full colour the divers passions that are aroused, and ... to offer a new type of spectacle. ...cited in {{harvp|Einstein|1962|loc=430}}File:Casanova ritratto.jpg|thumb|150px|CasanovaCasanovaOnly one address of Da Ponte's during his stay in Vienna is known: in 1788 he lived in the house Heidenschuà 316 (today the street area between Freyung and Hof), which belonged to the Viennese archbishop. There he rented a three-room apartment for 200 Gulden.Michael Lorenz, "Mozart's Apartment on the Alsergrund" (Vienna, 2009), published in print in: Newsletter of the Mozart Society of America, Vol. XIV, No. 2 (27 August 2010)With the death of Austrian Emperor Joseph II, brother of Marie-Antoinette, in 1790, Da Ponte lost his patron and position as court theater poet.Da Ponte in New York, Mozart in New York, Otto Biba, Academiccommons, Columbia University, p. 109-110. He was formally dismissed from the Imperial Service in 1791, due to intrigues, receiving no support from the new Emperor, Leopold. At this time, he was still banished from Venice (until the end of 1794), so he would travel elsewhere. In Trieste he met Nancy Grahl, the English daughter of an Jewish chemist (who he would never marry but eventually have four children with).WEB,weblink Review: Lorenzo da Ponte by Rodney Bolt, TheGuardian.com, 5 August 2006, In August 1792, he set off for Paris via Prague and Dresden armed with a letter of recommendation to Queen Marie Antoinette that her brother, the late Emperor Joseph II, had given Da Ponte before his death. On the road to Paris, on learning about the worsening political situation in France and the arrest of the king and queen, he decided to head for London instead, accompanied by his companion Grahl and their then two children.{{sfnp|Holden|2006|loc=128â131}}WEB,weblink Mozart? He owes it all to me, TheGuardian.com, 2 July 2004, During this time, he met for the last time Casanova in Vienna, looking for his old friend to settle a debt but after seeing Casanova's poor situtation, he decided to not recall the debt.Maynial, Edouard (1911). Casanova and his time, Chapter Lorenzo Da Ponte, Chapman & Hall, London, p. 211-212 Casanova still accompanied him on his way to Dresden while he was serving as Secretary to Count Waldstein, the patron of Ludwig van Beethoven, and advised him to not go to Paris but London.Da Ponte would later comment in his memoirs on Casanova's arrest at the Piombi prison in the Doge's Palace in Venice.After a precarious start in England, exercising a number of jobs including that of grocer and Italian teacher, he became librettist at the King's Theatre, London, in 1803. He remained based in London, undertaking various theatrical and publishing activities until 1805, when debt and bankruptcy caused him to flee to the United States with Grahl and their children.{{anchor|American career}}American career (1805-1838)
File:Samuel Morse zugeschrieben Lorenzo Da Ponte New York Yacht Club Detail.jpg|thumb|220px|Portrait by Samuel Morse, Lorenzo Da Ponte, at the New York Yacht ClubNew York Yacht ClubHaving moved to the United States in 1805, Da Ponte settled in New York City first, then Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons while entertaining in some business activities in Philadelphia. He returned to New York to open a bookstore. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore, and, through him, gained an unpaid appointment as the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College.He was the first Roman Catholic priest to be appointed to the faculty, and he was also the first to have been raised a Jew. In New York he introduced opera and produced in 1825 the first full performance of Don Giovanni in the United States, in which Maria GarcÃa (soon to marry Malibran) sang Zerlina. He also introduced Gioachino Rossini's music in the U.S., through a concert tour with his niece Giulia Da Ponte.In 1807 he began to write his Memoirs (published in 1823), described by Charles Rosen as "not an intimate exploration of his own identity and character, but rather a picaresque adventure story."{{sfnp|Da Ponte|2000|loc=ixâx}} In 1828, at the age of 79, Da Ponte became a naturalized U.S. citizen.(File:Italian Opera House, Later National Theatre, Leonard Street, New York, 1833, Lorenzo Da Ponte Company.jpg|thumb|The Italian Opera House, New-York, Lorenzo Da Ponte company)In 1833, at the age of eighty-four, he founded the first purpose-built opera theater in the United States, the Italian Opera House in New York City, on the northwest corner of Leonard and Church Streets, which was far superior to any theater the city had yet seen.MAGAZINE,weblink The New Yorker, 8 January 2007, Nights at the Opera, Joan, Acocella, Joan Acocella, JOURNAL,weblink Appletons' Journal, 23 November 1872, VIII, 191, Thorpe, T. B., Thomas Bangs Thorpe, 580, The Old Theatres of New York, 1750â1827, Da Ponte in New York, Mozart in New York, Otto Biba, Academiccommons, Columbia University, p. 114-115. Owing to his lack of business acumen, however, it lasted only two seasons before the company had to be disbanded and the theater sold to pay the company's debts. In 1836 the opera house became the National Theater. In 1839 the building was burned to the ground, but it was speedily rebuilt and reopened. On 29 May 1841 however, it was destroyed by fire again.BOOK,weblink 173â74, The Memorial History of the City of New-York, IV, James Grant, Wilson, 1893, New-York History Company, New York, Da Ponte's opera house was, however, the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the New York Metropolitan Opera.Da Ponte died in 1838 in New York; an enormous funeral ceremony was held in New York's old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street. Records indicate that he was originally buried in a Catholic Cemetery on 11th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. That cemetery was later paved over and the remains of the people buried there were removed to Calvary Cemetery in 1909. While the exact location of his grave at Calvary is unknown, Calvary Cemetery does contain a stone marker as a memorial.{{Find a Grave|11764|Da Ponte memorial}}Some{{weasel inline|date=October 2022}} sources claim Da Ponte was buried in Calvary Cemetery. In the sense "the act of burial" this cannot be correct since that cemetery did not exist before 1848, but in the act "lie buried" it likely is true - Da Ponte's remains likely were moved along with everyone else's from that first cemeteryIn 2009 the Spanish director Carlos Saura released his Italian film Io, Don Giovanni, a somewhat fictionalized account of Da Ponte, which attempted to link his life with his libretto for Don Giovanni.Da Ponte's libretti
File:1920-Mozart-Don Giovanni.jpg|thumb|150px|Libretto Don Giovanni, melodramma by Da Ponte and MozartMozartThe nature of Da Ponte's contribution to the art of libretto-writing has been much discussed. In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, it is pointed out that "the portrayal of grand passions was not his strength", but that he worked particularly closely with his composers to bring out their strengths, especially where it was a matter of sharp characterization or humorous or satirical passages.Richard Taruskin notes that Mozart, in letters to his father Leopold, had expressed concern to secure Da Ponte, but was worried that the Italian composers in town (e.g. Salieri) were trying to keep him for themselves.He specifically wished to create a buffa comedy opera which included a seria female part for contrast; Taruskin suggests that "Da Ponte's special gift was that of forging this virtual smorgasbord of idioms into a vivid dramatic shape."{{sfnp|Taruskin|2010|loc=476â477}} David Cairns examines Da Ponte's reworking of the scenario for Don Giovanni, (originally written by Giovanni Bertati and performed in Venice as Don Giovanni Tenorio, with music by Gazzaniga, in 1787).Cairns points out that "the verbal borrowings are few", and that Da Ponte is at every point "wittier, more stylish, more concise and more effective." Moreover, Da Ponte's restructuring of the action enables a tighter format giving better opportunities for Mozart's musical structures.{{sfnp|Cairns|2006|loc=147â151}} David Conway suggests that Da Ponte's own life 'in disguise' (as a Jew/priest/womaniser) enabled him to infuse the operatic cliche of disguise with a sense of Romantic irony.{{sfnp|Conway|2012|loc=52â53}}Family
File:Millstatt Stiftgasse Plastik des Lorenzo da Ponte 16082014 557.jpg|150px|thumb|Da Ponte's statue, Millstätter SeeMillstätter SeeWith Nancy Grahl he had five children :WEB,weblink Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749â1838), Librettist, Professor, and the Father of Italian Opera in the United States, 2022-11-30,- Louisa (Da Ponte) Clossey (1798â1823)
- Frances (Da Ponte) Anderson (1799â1844)
- Joseph Da Ponte (1800â1821)
- Lorenzo Luigi Da Ponte (1804â1840)
- Charles Grahl Da Ponte (b. 1806)
Works
- Opera libretti:
- La Scuola de' gelosi (1783) â composer Antonio Salieri
- Il ricco d'un giorno (1784) â composer Antonio Salieri
- Il burbero di buon cuore (1786, from the play by Carlo Goldoni) â composer Vicente MartÃn y Soler
- Il Demogorgone ovvero Il filosofo confuso (1786) â composer Vincenzo Righini
- Il finto cieco (1786) â composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga
- Le nozze di Figaro (1785/86, from the play by Pierre Beaumarchais) â composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Una cosa rara (1786, from the comedy La Luna de la Sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara) â composer Vicente MartÃn y Soler
- Gli equivoci (1786) â composer Stephen Storace
- L'arbore di Diana (1787) â composer Vicente MartÃn y Soler
- Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don Giovanni (1787, from the opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga) â composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Axur, re d'Ormus (1787/88, translation of the libretto Tarare by Pierre Beaumarchais) â composer Antonio Salieri
- Il Talismano (1788, from Carlo Goldoni) â composer Antonio Salieri
- Il Bertoldo (1788) â composer {{ill|Antonio Brunetti (composer)|it|Antonio Brunetti (compositore)|lt=Antonio Brunetti}}
- L'Ape musicale (1789) â Pasticcio of works by various composers
- Il Pastor fido (1789, from the pastoral by Giovanni Battista Guarini) â composer Antonio Salieri
- La cifra (1789) â composer Antonio Salieri
- Così fan tutte (1789/90) â composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- La Caffettiera bizzarra (1790) â composer Joseph Weigl
- La Capricciosa corretta (1795) â composer Vicente MartÃn y Soler
- Antigona (1796) â composer Francesco Bianchi
- Il consiglio imprudente (1796) â composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
- Merope (1797) â composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
- Cinna (1798) â composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
- Armida (1802) â composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
- La grotta di Calipso (1803) â composer Peter Winter
- Il trionfo dell'amor fraterno (1804) â composer Peter Winter
- Il ratto di Proserpina (1804) â composer Peter Winter
- Cantatas and oratorios:
- Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) â composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri and "Cornetti"
- Il Davidde (1791) â Pasticcio from works by various composers
- Hymn to America â composer Antonio Bagioli
- Poetry:
- Letter of complaint in blank verse to Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor{{sfnp|Holden|2006|pp=113â116}}
- 18 sonnets in commemoration of his wife (1832)
- Other
- translations from English into Italian
- several books of elementary instruction in the Italian language
- Memorie (autobiography)
- History of the Florentine Republic and the Medici (2 vols., 1833).APPLETONS', Da Ponte, Lorenzo, 1900,
See also
References
Notes{{Notelist}}Citations{{Reflist|30em}}Sources- BOOK, Angermüller, Rudolph, Rudolph Angermüller, Da Ponte, Lorenzo, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Stanley Sadie, Stanley Sadie, London, Macmillan, 1990, 0333231112,
- BOOK, Cairns, David, David Cairns (writer), Mozart and his Operas, London, Penguin, 2006, 9780713994919,
- BOOK, Conway, David, David Conway (music historian), Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 9781107015388,
- BOOK, Da Ponte, Lorenzo, E. Abbott, Introduction Charles Rosen, A. Livingstone, Memoirs, New York, New York Review of Books, 2000, 9780940322356,
- BOOK, Einstein, Alfred, Alfred Einstein, A. Mendel and N. Broder, Mozart: His Character, His Work, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1962, 0195007328,
- BOOK, Holden, Anthony, Anthony Holden, The Man Who Wrote Mozart: The Extraordinary Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, London, Orion Publishing, 2006, 0-7538-2180-X,
- BOOK, Taruskin, Richard, Richard Taruskin, Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010, 9780195384826,
Further reading
- Baker, Felicity (2021) (edited by Magnus Tessing Schneider). Don Giovanni's Reasons: Thoughts on a masterpiece. Bern: Peter Lang.
- Bolt, Rodney, The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte â 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, and New York: Riverrun Press,
- 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 (pub.), Lorenzo Da Ponte â Challenging the New World, exhibition catalogue from the Jewish Museum {{ISBN|978-3-7757-1748-9}}
- NEWS,weblink New-York Mirror, XVI, 14, September 29, 1838, 1, Original Biographical Sketches: Lorenzo Da Ponte, of Ceneda,
- Steptoe, Anthony, MozartâDa 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
{{commons category |Lorenzo Da Ponte}}- 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 2006
- Keats, Jonathon, "Lorenzo's Toil", review of Rodney Bolt's The Librettist of Venice, The Washington Post, 16 July 2006
- Lazare, Christopher, "That Was New York: Da Ponte, the Bearer of Culture", The New Yorker, 25 March 1944, pp. 34â51
- Lorenz, Michael, "Lorenzo Da Ponte's Viennese Residence in 1788", michaelorenz.blogspot.com, (Vienna, 1 February 2013)
- {{CathEncy|wstitle=Lorenzo Da Ponte|ref=none}}
- {{Librivox author |id=11471}}
- content above as imported from Wikipedia
- "Lorenzo Da Ponte" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 7:17am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024
- "Lorenzo Da Ponte" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 7:17am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024
[ this remote article is provided by Wikipedia ]
LATEST EDITS [ see all ]
GETWIKI 23 MAY 2022
The Illusion of Choice
Culture
Culture
GETWIKI 09 JUL 2019
Eastern Philosophy
History of Philosophy
History of Philosophy
GETWIKI 09 MAY 2016
GetMeta:About
GetWiki
GetWiki
GETWIKI 18 OCT 2015
M.R.M. Parrott
Biographies
Biographies
GETWIKI 20 AUG 2014
GetMeta:News
GetWiki
GetWiki
© 2024 M.R.M. PARROTT | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED