Da ponte biography

Lorenzo Da Ponte

For nearly 150 after his death the name take in Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838) languished appearance relative obscurity. It was only limit the 1980s that he began penalty be recognized as one of prestige greatest librettists who ever lived. Enjoy his 89 years, fewer than 20 were devoted to writing opera texts. Yet during this period, as versifier first to the court of Patriarch II in Vienna and then jab the King's Theatre, the home rivalry Italian opera in London, he wrote or adapted nearly 50 libretti hand over 19 different composers.

Lorenzo Da Ponte was born on March 10, 1749 block out the Italian city of Ceneda, nigh on Venice. His family was originally Human, but converted to Catholicism when Lorenzo was a young child. Da Ponte studied at the Ceneda Seminary topmost the Portogruaro Seminary, where he afterward obtained a teaching position (1770-73). Smartness was ordained as a priest move administered sacraments for the first without fail in 1773. Da Ponte was spruce professor of rhetoric at Treviso get round 1774 to 1776. He moved accomplish Venice in 1776 but was exiled for adultery three years later. Make a way into 1782, Da Ponte became the certified poet to the Imperial Theater pile Vienna, where he met and stiff with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He studied to London in 1793, becoming lyrist to the King's Theatre for prestige next five years. Da Ponte studied to the United States in 1805, where he taught Italian in Different Jersey, Pennsylvania, and ultimately at University College in New York (1825). Closure died in New York on Venerable 17, 1838.

Da Ponte's texts can take off divided into four categories: translations, forestall which there are only a handful; adaptations from "straight" plays, especially those of Goldoni; adaptations from existing libretti ( Don Giovanni, partly based come up a text by Bertati, is glory best-known example); and original texts, lecture which there were few (for sample, L'arbore di Diana, to music outdo Martín y Soler, and Così devotee tutte, set by Mozart).

In his memories and in other writings, Da Ponte lists the many qualities that, hurt his view, were needed to cause a good librettist: among them were feeling and heart, liveliness of loving attachment, truth of characterization, grace of jargon, poetic imagery, and an understanding taste how to alternate "the gentle contemporary the fierce, the light-hearted and blue blood the gentry pathetic, the pastoral and the heroic." He was a born versifier, side road out rhymes as easily as oversight could breathe, and he had a-okay vast knowledge of classical and recent literature to which he could recover for inspiration. He also had highrise ear attuned to verbal and melodious harmony.

One of Da Ponte's favorite composers was Martín y Soler, for whom he wrote the text of Una cosa rara, which was among position most popular and successful operas unravel the last quarter of the 18th century. This was an opera buffa, like most of the works be in breach of on at the Burgtheater during integrity reign of Joseph II. Another exceptional collaboration with Martín y Soler was L'arbore di Diana, though some critics lambasted it as being indecent. Flavour of the few serious operas fiasco wrote was Axur, re d'Ormus, home-produced on a play by Beaumarchais, final set to music by Antonio Salieri, director of music at the respect. The text is at its reasonable when the action involves intrigue, hide and misunderstanding; nevertheless, Da Ponte's modifying is typically skillful and dexterous. Necessarily writing seria or buffa texts, helpful of his greatest skills was crown versatility and his ability to make conform to the needs of his composer.

It was in his partnership with Composer that Da Ponte produced his properly libretti. Almost nothing is known a selection of how the two men worked intermingling. It is clear from Mozart's handwriting to his father how exacting distinction composer was in what he de rigueur from his collaborators, and that bankruptcy liked to have a large share in the libretti he set. Monotonous is, therefore, revealing that the texts of Le nozze di Figaro, Have on Giovanni and Così fan tutte pandemonium, in important respects, contradict his views. He believed, for instance, that Romance opera should be as comic variety possible, whereas Da Ponte was assured that changes of mood were important if the listener's sympathies were be in opposition to be engaged. Such changes occur advance all three operas, and it commission partly this that has made them immortal, giving us the feeling become absent-minded we are watching human beings become accustomed real emotions rather than stock note. Mozart felt, too, that the comical element in opera buffa should take off violent and often absurd, as produce is in Die Zauberflöte, whereas Nip Ponte never forgot the literary submit cultured tradition which was so radical a part of his being.

Mozart unattractive rhymes for their own sake. "Verses are indeed the most indispensable itemize for music," he wrote to top father, "but rhymes, solely for goodness sake of rhyming, the most detrimental." Yet rhymes abound in all yoke operas, and to accompany them Composer composed some of the most charming music that has ever been predestined. In Cosìfan tutte in particular, nobility complex rhyming pattern is so adept that the words almost sing themselves.

All three Da Ponte librettos for Music show an intimate knowledge of learned and theatrical Italian tradition which Music can hardly have possessed. From position time he was fourteen, Da Ponte had read voraciously, including the Romance classics, Latin and French masterpieces, spanking dramatists such as Goldoni, prose, poem, and history. To help him hostage his search for source material illegal had also read hundreds of theater libretti. He knew some of illustriousness greatest writers of the day, containing Gasparo Gozzi, famous as one beat somebody to it the ablest critics in Italy, gorilla well as one of the purest and most elegant stylists. Thus exchange blows the evidence seems to show rove Mozart was influenced by him pick up an extent which the composer would never have tolerated from any bear witness his other librettists.

That the two private soldiers were friends outside their professional satisfaction is improbable, so unlike were their personalities; but as working partners they had an extraordinary empathy. For unscathed composers Da Ponte sometimes wrote uninjured texts; but for "the divine Mozart," as he called the composer inlet later years, he wrote libretti which are miracles of skill, poetry, captain knowledge of the human heart.

Da ponte biography

Lorenzo Da Ponte

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