Personalities | Lorenzo Da Ponte | Classical Era | Opera

1749–1838, Italian

Young Lorenzo Da Ponte’s career as a priest came to an abrupt end when he was thrown out of his seminary for adultery. After settling in Vienna, he became poet to the imperial theatres without having written a single libretto. Nevertheless, Da Ponte produced an impressive adaptation of Iphigénie en Tauride (1783) by Nicolas-François Guillard (1752–1814). Il rico d’un giorno (‘A Rich Man for a Day’, 1784), which Da Ponte wrote for Salieri, was his first original libretto. Da Ponte was soon in demand in Vienna and of his total of 46 libretti, his most famous, written for Mozart, were Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. In 1791, Da Ponte fell out of favour in Vienna and left for London. Pursued by creditors, he moved on to the United States, where he established the Italian Opera House in New York in 1833.

Introduction | Classical Era | Opera
Personalities | Charles Dibdin | Classical Era | Opera

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