lōrĕntˈsō dä pônˈtā, 1749–1838, Italian poet, librettist, and pioneer in spreading Italian culture in the United States. Forced to leave Venice in 1782 because of scandal, Da Ponte went to Vienna, where he became poet to the Italian theater for nine years. There he wrote the librettos of three of Mozart's operas—The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790)—and many other works. Banished again because of scandal, he wandered through Europe, made an unhappy marriage, and settled in 1791 in London. There he worked as a tutor of Italian, a bookseller, and a librettist to the Drury Lane Theatre, until he went bankrupt in 1804. He set out for America in 1805, but he failed as a grocer in New Jersey. The rest of his life he spent as a celebrated teacher of Italian language and culture (except for an unsuccessful period spent in Pennsylvania selling medicines). He taught nearly 2,000 private pupils and was appointed professor of Italian language and literature at Columbia in 1830. His library, bought by the university when the chair was established in 1825, was the nucleus of its collection of Italian poetry and miscellaneous literature. In 1833 he helped establish the Italian Opera House in New York City, where 28 performances of Italian opera were given before the theater was transferred to other management. The venture represented the first attempt to establish Italian opera permanently in the United States. Da Ponte's last years were marred by poverty and the failure of his Italian opera. He wrote a remarkable collection of memoirs (ed. by Arthur Livingston, tr. 1929) detailing his extraordinary life.

See biographies by A. Fitzlyon (1955, repr. 1982), J. L. Russo (1922, repr. 1966), and L. J. Hetenyi (1988).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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