The Grocer Who Wrote For Mozart
Aug. 9th, 2009 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselFeb 2009
Lorenzo Da Ponte - Rodney Bolt - Bloomsbury, 2006
* * * *
It is probably fair to say that the name "Lorenzo da Ponte" would elicit blank looks from the overwhelming majority of people. His only claim to fame is that he was the librettist for Mozart's three greatest operas (The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte). But that was only a small part of his life. He travelled extensively and was also a priest, a libertine, a poet, an impresario, a bookseller, a grocer and a professor, all of which he recounted at considerable length in his memoirs. As such he is a biographer's dream and Rodney Bolt must have thanked his lucky stars for being able to snaffle such a good subject. For the dramatic events of Da Ponte's long life perfectly illuminate the social and political upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and make this more than just a biography of Mozart's librettist.
The book is organised into four sections based around the cities in which Da Ponte lived. The first is Venice, that fine symbol of the old world with its mist and its masks and its long slow decline into decadence. Da Ponte arrives fresh from the seminary, having trained as an abbe as a thank you to the bishop who sponsored his father's conversion from Judaism. However he soon manifested the character traits that he would display for the rest of his life - an eye for the ladies, a legendary charm, an ardent disposition and a total lack of nous - which resulted in various romantic escapades and an accumulation of political and personal enemies that ultimately resulted in his banishment from the Serene Republic.
From there the action moves to Vienna, where thanks to his poetic talents and a friendship with Emperor Joseph II, he landed a job as librettist to the new Italian opera company despite his total lack of qualifications for the job. It was at this time - between 1786 and 1790 - that he wrote his three famous libretti (amongst others; he also collaborated with Salieri and the Spanish composer Vincente Martin y Soler, whose music I would very much like to hear). Bolt dutifully assigns three chapters to them, but frustratingly can only speculate about the relationship between Da Ponte and Mozart (which appears to be have been more professional than personal despite their similarities in outlook) and their working methods. Nor does he have any striking new insights to offer about the operas themselves, though Da Ponte's romantic history does at least shed light on the odd combination of mysogynistic cynicism with sympathy for the plight of the tempted woman found in Cosi Fan Tutte.
The death of Joseph II gave his enemies in the Viennese musical establishment the upper hand, forcing him to flee to Trieste where he met and married Nancy, the daughter of a rich merchant. With her, he travelled to the bustling metropolis of London where he fell in with William "Opera" Taylor, the wide boy owner of the King's Theatre, and spent several largely unsuccessful years trying to bring Italian opera to the British public. He had just started a successful bookshop when creditors came calling for bills of exchange that he had foolishly endorsed on Taylor's behalf. Ultimately he was forced to file for bankruptcy and fled with Nancy and his now burgeoning family to New York, where, on advice from his father-in-law, he became a merchant grocer (Nancy provided the capital from a coffee house that she had run in London). As usual with Da Ponte's commercial ventures, it ended in disaster. However, he managed to make a name for himself as a teacher to the nouveau riche and eventually became Columbia University's first professor of Italian. He spent his remaining years writing his memoirs and attempting to bring Italian opera and culture to the people of New York, with limited success.
As always with biographies, there are some annoying lacunae where the reader wants to know more but the evidence is lacking. For me the main one was Nancy, who appears to have been a saint. It was she who kept the family together and protected it from her husband's follies. Clearly she was a formidable character and it would have been nice to have known more about her.
Nonetheless, this is a fine character study and a splendid account of a journey from the old world of aristocratic patronage to the new one of commercial capitalism, one that would in fact make a good opera in itself. For the ironic tragedy of Da Ponte's life is that he never successfully adapted to the cut and thrust of the new commercial realities despite having made his name with three works that challenged and undermined the moral certainties of the old regime. He was incapable of the circumspection and character judgement necessary for success in a world without patrons, having relied too much in younger life on charm and good connections.
Still, Da Ponte left a legacy that will be cherished for as long as civilisation exists, a fact of which he was himself aware. In an introduction to the libretti of the three Mozart operas that he published in New York, he wrote:
"To that immortal genius, I gladly yield all the glory which is due to him for writing such miraculous works; for myself, may I hope that some ray of this glory may fall on me, for having provided the vehicle for these everlasting treasures, through my most fortunate poetry."
Well, with this biography, it has. And a good thing too.
Lorenzo Da Ponte - Rodney Bolt - Bloomsbury, 2006
* * * *
It is probably fair to say that the name "Lorenzo da Ponte" would elicit blank looks from the overwhelming majority of people. His only claim to fame is that he was the librettist for Mozart's three greatest operas (The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte). But that was only a small part of his life. He travelled extensively and was also a priest, a libertine, a poet, an impresario, a bookseller, a grocer and a professor, all of which he recounted at considerable length in his memoirs. As such he is a biographer's dream and Rodney Bolt must have thanked his lucky stars for being able to snaffle such a good subject. For the dramatic events of Da Ponte's long life perfectly illuminate the social and political upheavals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and make this more than just a biography of Mozart's librettist.
The book is organised into four sections based around the cities in which Da Ponte lived. The first is Venice, that fine symbol of the old world with its mist and its masks and its long slow decline into decadence. Da Ponte arrives fresh from the seminary, having trained as an abbe as a thank you to the bishop who sponsored his father's conversion from Judaism. However he soon manifested the character traits that he would display for the rest of his life - an eye for the ladies, a legendary charm, an ardent disposition and a total lack of nous - which resulted in various romantic escapades and an accumulation of political and personal enemies that ultimately resulted in his banishment from the Serene Republic.
From there the action moves to Vienna, where thanks to his poetic talents and a friendship with Emperor Joseph II, he landed a job as librettist to the new Italian opera company despite his total lack of qualifications for the job. It was at this time - between 1786 and 1790 - that he wrote his three famous libretti (amongst others; he also collaborated with Salieri and the Spanish composer Vincente Martin y Soler, whose music I would very much like to hear). Bolt dutifully assigns three chapters to them, but frustratingly can only speculate about the relationship between Da Ponte and Mozart (which appears to be have been more professional than personal despite their similarities in outlook) and their working methods. Nor does he have any striking new insights to offer about the operas themselves, though Da Ponte's romantic history does at least shed light on the odd combination of mysogynistic cynicism with sympathy for the plight of the tempted woman found in Cosi Fan Tutte.
The death of Joseph II gave his enemies in the Viennese musical establishment the upper hand, forcing him to flee to Trieste where he met and married Nancy, the daughter of a rich merchant. With her, he travelled to the bustling metropolis of London where he fell in with William "Opera" Taylor, the wide boy owner of the King's Theatre, and spent several largely unsuccessful years trying to bring Italian opera to the British public. He had just started a successful bookshop when creditors came calling for bills of exchange that he had foolishly endorsed on Taylor's behalf. Ultimately he was forced to file for bankruptcy and fled with Nancy and his now burgeoning family to New York, where, on advice from his father-in-law, he became a merchant grocer (Nancy provided the capital from a coffee house that she had run in London). As usual with Da Ponte's commercial ventures, it ended in disaster. However, he managed to make a name for himself as a teacher to the nouveau riche and eventually became Columbia University's first professor of Italian. He spent his remaining years writing his memoirs and attempting to bring Italian opera and culture to the people of New York, with limited success.
As always with biographies, there are some annoying lacunae where the reader wants to know more but the evidence is lacking. For me the main one was Nancy, who appears to have been a saint. It was she who kept the family together and protected it from her husband's follies. Clearly she was a formidable character and it would have been nice to have known more about her.
Nonetheless, this is a fine character study and a splendid account of a journey from the old world of aristocratic patronage to the new one of commercial capitalism, one that would in fact make a good opera in itself. For the ironic tragedy of Da Ponte's life is that he never successfully adapted to the cut and thrust of the new commercial realities despite having made his name with three works that challenged and undermined the moral certainties of the old regime. He was incapable of the circumspection and character judgement necessary for success in a world without patrons, having relied too much in younger life on charm and good connections.
Still, Da Ponte left a legacy that will be cherished for as long as civilisation exists, a fact of which he was himself aware. In an introduction to the libretti of the three Mozart operas that he published in New York, he wrote:
"To that immortal genius, I gladly yield all the glory which is due to him for writing such miraculous works; for myself, may I hope that some ray of this glory may fall on me, for having provided the vehicle for these everlasting treasures, through my most fortunate poetry."
Well, with this biography, it has. And a good thing too.