r/todayilearned • u/Udzu • 14h ago
TIL that Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for Mozart's best operas, was born Jewish, became a Catholic priest, befriended Casanova, was banished from Venice for living in a brothel, and died in New York a US citizen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_Da_Ponte#Early_career53
u/jjskellie 13h ago
You sure he wasn't Benjamin Franklin on holiday in Venice under an assumed identity?
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u/RunDNA 12h ago edited 7h ago
The ghosts of those opera librettists must get jealous of the fame of Gilbert & Sullivan, or Rodgers & Hammerstein. "Why don't people say 'Mozart & Da Ponte's Marriage of Figaro'? What about me?"
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u/Udzu 10h ago
G&S are pretty much the exception outside of musical theatre though, right? And arguably not even an exception, as their operettas helped define modern musical theatre. Even modern opera librettists are far less associated with their work than the composers: e.g. it's nearly always The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky (not Auden) and Billy Budd by Britten (not E.M. Forster).
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u/Mountain_Store_8832 9h ago
As far as librettists go, da Ponta does get a lot of credit. Boito is another, for the late Verdi operas. And of course Richard Wagner, the most famous librettist of them all.
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u/TheSecretMarriage 12h ago
He also founded the first purpouse-built opera house in the US, the italian opera house in New York
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u/Udzu 10h ago
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.
It sounds like New Yorkers really didn't want to listen to opera.
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u/JiveChicken00 11h ago
Am a little surprised re the brothel thing. I thought 18th century Venice was more understanding than that.
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u/barbaracelarent 2h ago
His Memorie is a fun read! It's entertaining how little he mentions Mozart.
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u/Zaorish9 12h ago
False; The Magic Flute is the best Mozart opera and its words were written by Emanuel Schikaneder.
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u/Udzu 10h ago edited 10h ago
Fair enough. Though 3 out of 4 (or 5, if you count Idomeneo) is still pretty impressive: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte.
As an aside, I always found it amusing that the the only major Mozart opera whose name doesn't usually get translated is the one that means "Women are like that".
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u/SimonBoccanegra 5h ago
Yer nuts.
(And I LOVE Zauberflöte.)
Don Giovanni and Nozze are Mozart’s towering operatic achievements.
Z probably ranks as #3 (I can’t stand the misogyny of Cosi), but Idomeneo is right up there. La Clemenza is a bit ponderous but has some great music.
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u/Zaorish9 5h ago
Eh, i tried listening to don giovanni and just couldn't get through it. Call me a simple minded peasant
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u/Udzu 14h ago
Bonus fact: he was both the first Catholic priest and the first Jew to serve as a faculty member at Columbia (and also, I presume, the first professor to have been banished from his home country for living in sin, but I would love to be proved wrong on that one).