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The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impresario in America
The operatic life of the librettist for Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro.
In 1805, Lorenzo Da Ponte was the proprietor of a small grocery store in New York. But since his birth into an Italian Jewish family in 1749, he had already been a priest, a poet, the lover of many women, a scandalous Enlightenment thinker banned from teaching in Venice, the librettist for three of Mozart's most sublime operas, a collaborator with Salieri, a friend of Casanova, and a favorite of Emperor Joseph II. He would go on to establish New York City's first opera house and be the first professor of Italian at Columbia University. An inspired innovator but a hopeless businessman, who loved with wholehearted loyalty and recklessness, Da Ponte was one of the early immigrants to live out the American dream.
In Rodney Bolt's rollicking and extensively researched biography, Da Ponte's picaresque life takes readers from Old World courts and the back streets of Venice, Vienna, and London to the New World promise of New York City. Two hundred and fifty years after Mozart's birth, the life and legacy of his librettist Da Ponte are as astonishing as ever.
In 1805, Lorenzo Da Ponte was the proprietor of a small grocery store in New York. But since his birth into an Italian Jewish family in 1749, he had already been a priest, a poet, the lover of many women, a scandalous Enlightenment thinker banned from teaching in Venice, the librettist for three of Mozart's most sublime operas, a collaborator with Salieri, a friend of Casanova, and a favorite of Emperor Joseph II. He would go on to establish New York City's first opera house and be the first professor of Italian at Columbia University. An inspired innovator but a hopeless businessman, who loved with wholehearted loyalty and recklessness, Da Ponte was one of the early immigrants to live out the American dream.
In Rodney Bolt's rollicking and extensively researched biography, Da Ponte's picaresque life takes readers from Old World courts and the back streets of Venice, Vienna, and London to the New World promise of New York City. Two hundred and fifty years after Mozart's birth, the life and legacy of his librettist Da Ponte are as astonishing as ever.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published July 11, 2006
25 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
About the author
Rodney Bolt
36 books3 followersRodney Bolt was born in South Africa. He studied at Rhodes University and wrote the play Gandhi: Act Too, which won the 1980 Durban Critic's Circle Play of the Year award. That same year he won a scholarship to Cambridge and read English at Corpus Christi. He has twice won Travel Writer of the Year awards in Germany and is the author of History Play, an invented biography of Christopher Marlowe (HarperCollins, 2004) and The Librettist of Venice, a biography of Lorenzo Da Ponte (Bloomsbury, 2006), which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Amsterdam.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 1, 2010
The back cover blurb quotes the Sunday Telegraph review: "An adventure pure and simple ... crammed with amorous intrigues, narrow escapes, comic mishaps and last minute rescues." Superficially this is true but it makes it sound like the book of the latest Carry On film and that is a gross distortion.
Rodney Bolt has written a meticulously researched account of a remarkable man and placed him in the social and physical context of four very different cities. The Vienna years, for example, will reveal for Mozart lovers the background, both scholarly and gossipy, to the creation and early performances of "Le Nozze di Figaro." "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi fan Tutte."
The author's fluent style and laconic humour make this an easily readable book but they do not obscure the quality of a serious and authentic biography
Rodney Bolt has written a meticulously researched account of a remarkable man and placed him in the social and physical context of four very different cities. The Vienna years, for example, will reveal for Mozart lovers the background, both scholarly and gossipy, to the creation and early performances of "Le Nozze di Figaro." "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi fan Tutte."
The author's fluent style and laconic humour make this an easily readable book but they do not obscure the quality of a serious and authentic biography
November 16, 2013
Lorenzo reinvented himself until the day he died!
July 13, 2013
Highly enjoyable, and something to read before you dramatize the lives of The Great. There's a lot of day-to-day between those inspired flashes.
September 7, 2025
Lorenzo da Ponte's reputation is stained by his association with Casanova, whose influence on him was not that profound, and by his own Memoirs, which are replete with lies. So it was refreshing to learn that da Ponte was actually a decent man, despite himself. He was born into poverty and spent the rest of life scheming, doing whatever he could to make a living. He happened to have a talent for poetry, but even then, as poet for some of the greatest composers in Europe, he was run out of town for his failed ventures (and gambling debts. and political intrigue. and once for allegedly running a brothel while he was still a Catholic priest.)
His lifespan was long, so long that his biography also becomes a history of Europe and the US in the mid 18th to early 19th centuries. Rodney Bolt quite nicely puts da Ponte's life in this historical context, and while I didn't appreciate his ironic tone at first, it grew on me. da Ponte had a hard life, but it was extraordinary in almost every way, and Bolt has fun with it.
His lifespan was long, so long that his biography also becomes a history of Europe and the US in the mid 18th to early 19th centuries. Rodney Bolt quite nicely puts da Ponte's life in this historical context, and while I didn't appreciate his ironic tone at first, it grew on me. da Ponte had a hard life, but it was extraordinary in almost every way, and Bolt has fun with it.
January 30, 2025
Incredible life story! Crazy to learn the librettist of Mozart's best operas was also an impressario, grocer, bookseller and on and on. Pity there were so many typos in the ebook version. Presumably they digitally scanned the printed text, and each instance of "rs" was read as an "n"? Just weird.
July 26, 2013
Lorenzo da Ponte defied his time, and later, his age. In his era, most people stayed put, and if they moved, they stayed in the new place. People generally had one career- that of their father(s). Having relocated and reinvented himself, several times, da Ponte lived two generations beyond his contemporaries. At his death he was more than twice Mozart's final age. He outlived his wife by a generation, and he was a generation her senior!
He was busy every moment with optimistic plans and schemes. When things worked out he had high highs. He had low lows when they didn't. Nothing deterred him - ever. He died a risk taking octogenarian. Something about his personality garnered great friends and stirred up enemies.
Bolt is wonderful in describing places da Ponte lived in their times. In Vienna, through the largesse of the Emperor Joseph, a theater could operate independent of the crown, a privilege easily rescinded. I read and re-read the different parts about how the words of Thomas Jefferson resounded in Europe. Like the descriptions of late 18th century Vienna, Prague, the Italian cities and London, the descriptions of early 19th century Philadelphia and NYC are marvelous.
Don Giovani played here in Hawaii to a sold out crowd last week. I wonder how many of those in attendance knew the librettists' name? How many this wonderful story of his life?
He was busy every moment with optimistic plans and schemes. When things worked out he had high highs. He had low lows when they didn't. Nothing deterred him - ever. He died a risk taking octogenarian. Something about his personality garnered great friends and stirred up enemies.
Bolt is wonderful in describing places da Ponte lived in their times. In Vienna, through the largesse of the Emperor Joseph, a theater could operate independent of the crown, a privilege easily rescinded. I read and re-read the different parts about how the words of Thomas Jefferson resounded in Europe. Like the descriptions of late 18th century Vienna, Prague, the Italian cities and London, the descriptions of early 19th century Philadelphia and NYC are marvelous.
Don Giovani played here in Hawaii to a sold out crowd last week. I wonder how many of those in attendance knew the librettists' name? How many this wonderful story of his life?
May 24, 2015
Here's a needle rip: the librettist for Mozart's three greatest operas ended up selling groceries in Philadelphia and then books in New York. And unlike modern librettists, who get lots of credit (Gilbert & Sullivan, Rogers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Lerner & Lowe), poor Lorenzo da Ponte is forgotten by all but serious opera buffs. A fascinating story, marred by the truly terrible job Kindle did with the text. I gave up counting the stupid errors that anyone with half a brain would have caught.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews