Description
Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838) was the celebrated librettist for Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro , Don Giovanni , and Cosi fan tutte . This biography traces his life from his childhood in a Jewish ghetto, through his time as a Catholic priest, as a librettist, as a poor immigrant to the United States, and finally as a professor of Italian at Columbia University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Three of the greatest operas ever written—The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte—join the exquisite music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with the perfectly matched libretti of Lorenzo Da Ponte. Da Ponte’s own long life (1749–1838), however, was more fantastic than any opera plot. A poor Jew who became a Catholic priest; a priest who became a young gambler and rake; a teacher, poet, and librettist of genius who became a Pennsylvania greengrocer; an impoverished immigrant to America who became professor of Italian at Columbia University—wherever Da Ponte went, he arrived a penniless fugitive and made a new and eventful life. Sheila Hodges follows him from the last glittering years of the Venetian Republic to the Vienna of Mozart and Salieri, and from George III’s London to New York City.
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