| Among the world's favorite operas, we find three of | | | | He also considered himself adroit politically, but his |
| them with a libretto penned by Lorenzo Da Ponte and | | | | moves were disastrous. He upset the successors of |
| music by none other than the astonishingly delightful | | | | Joseph II so much he was exiled from Vienna. |
| Viennese ear-confectioner Mozart. The list is a delight | | | | Now,still technically a priest he was married to a |
| in itself: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovann, and | | | | younger but more wisely practical woman named |
| Così Fan Tutte. | | | | Nancy Grahl, but even she was unable to keep the |
| We learn in the new book, The Librettist of Venice, by | | | | man out of bankruptcy in London and again in America, |
| Rodney Bolt, that Da Ponte grew so close with the | | | | where they moved in 1805, because her family had |
| unequalled Mozart - both of whom, we learn, were not | | | | settled here. |
| only talented but vain, insecure and ambitious - that | | | | He attempted to establish Italian opera companies |
| while writing Don Giovanni, they worked in adjoining | | | | when English-speaking audiences had little interest in |
| lodges and shouted to each other through their | | | | them. To add onions to opera, the grocery business |
| windows. | | | | failed. |
| Da Ponte even dared to contend with Mozart, who | | | | He finally became a teacher, bookseller and wannabe |
| believed the text should be subservient to the music, | | | | impresario. |
| while Da Ponte was certain that the words should be | | | | On the positive side, New York turned out to be the |
| primary, in fact, that without his poetry even Mighty | | | | most agreeable spot for him. It was relatively liberal, |
| Mo's music would be nothing. | | | | and Da Ponte found himself a favorite of the cultural |
| Yet how Da Ponte tumbled from the heights. Hard as | | | | elite. |
| it may be to imagine, he wound up in New York, | | | | He became the first professor of Italian at Columbia |
| running, at one time, a grocery store on the Bowery. | | | | University. While the position was pretty much |
| Brilliant as an artist, he was apparently, in his personal | | | | ceremonial, Da Ponte has the double distinction of |
| life, a managerial moron. Or, said another way, while | | | | having been the first Jew and first priest on the |
| talent flies, practical reason just plods along, like a | | | | school's faculty. |
| relative moron. | | | | He lived on into his 80's, revered but regarded as |
| Da Ponte, born Jewish, was, as a result of his father's | | | | eccentric. |
| having decided the family should become Catholic for | | | | He was charming man who made a profession of |
| the easement of a life of trade, ordained a priest. But | | | | being European when such a state was still |
| his real vocation was married women. His exploits, we | | | | considered novel. |
| learn, rivaled Casanova, who became his pal and, if we | | | | Yet when one compares his everyday doings with his |
| believe such a thing is possible in the category at hand, | | | | winged collaboration with Mozart, one can only shake |
| his mentor. | | | | his head with the recognition of how quicksilver brilliant |
| Da Ponte himself admitted a shortcoming in | | | | the remarkable syntheses of talent are, way up in |
| comparison with his rival for insincere relationships: he | | | | mental processes we can only hope will drop answers |
| didn't have Casanova's purported talent for fleecing | | | | into our expectant consciousness, compared to the |
| the women he falsely wooed. In fact, Da Ponte claims | | | | "first we do this and then we do that" plodding of the |
| he actually loved the ones he made out with. | | | | practical but still invaluable mind. |