Background
Lorenzo Da Ponte was born on March 10, 1749 at Ceneda, near Venice, Italy. His parents, Geremia Conegliano, a Jewish tanner, and Rachele Pincherle, named the child Emanuele.
((Amadeus). For a long time, Cosi fan tutte was considered...)
(Amadeus). For a long time, Cosi fan tutte was considered scandalous which is not entirely surprising, if you look at its story. After seeing their fiances, Guglielmo and Ferrando, go off to war, two sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, all too rapidly overcome their grief and agree to marry two attractive strangers within the space of just a couple days. Little do the sisters know that the strangers are in fact those same fiances in disguise! The whole thing is a plot masterminded by a cynical old philosopher, Don Alfonso, and a clever maid, Despina. Scandalous or not, Cosi fan tutte has remained one of opera's most contemporary comedies.
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adventurer librettist professor
Lorenzo Da Ponte was born on March 10, 1749 at Ceneda, near Venice, Italy. His parents, Geremia Conegliano, a Jewish tanner, and Rachele Pincherle, named the child Emanuele.
He studied at the Ceneda seminary.
He obtained an appointment to teach in a seminary in Treviso, but he soon lost this position because of his expression of certain liberal ideas. On his return to Venice he was engaged as a tutor by several noble families. In 1779, he was banished from Venetian territory for fifteen years because of his involvement in scandals. He fled first to Gorizia, then to Dresden and Vienna. In the latter city he won the protection of Emperor Joseph II, who appointed him poet of the imperial theatres. In this capacity he revised old librettos and wrote original ones for the Spanish composer Martin y Solar and for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His chief claim to artistic fame today rests on three librettos written at this period for operas by Mozart, which remain popular: Le Nozze di Figaro (1786; The Marriage of Figaro, after Beaumarchais' play), Don Giovanni (1787; Don Juan), and Cosi fan Tutte (1790; So Do They All). When Joseph II died in 1790, Da Ponte lost his assignment. In 1792, after a brief sojourn in Trieste, he went to London, where he earned his livelihood as a librettist, bookseller, and printer, but he constantly found himself in difficulties with usurers and lawyers. Finally, after his bankruptcy in 1805, he came to the United States, where he failed in a variety of pursuits, as grocer in New York, storekeeper in Sunbury, and distiller at Northumberland. Da Ponte was far more successful, however, as a teacher of Italian and as an importer of Italian books. However, since the study of Italian in the college remained optional, DaPonte had no chair in the faculty and no salary, receiving only the fees of students who chose his courses. On several occasions he appealed to the college authorities to improve the status of the study of his native language in the curriculum, but he was unsuccessful, and he remained to his death in 1838 what he humorously called himself-- professor sine exemplo--"the unique professor. "In 1832-1833 Da Ponte was active in the first attempts made to establish a regular Italian opera house in New York, serving as general adviser to the company that was formed to erect such a building at Leonard and Church streets. This opera house opened its doors to a brilliant first audience on November 18, 1833, but later failed.
((Amadeus). For a long time, Cosi fan tutte was considered...)