The Man Who Wrote Mozart

The many lives of Lorenzo da Ponte—librettist of Mozart’s three great operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte—began in Venice, lingered in Vienna and London and ended in New York, where today he lies buried in an unmarked grave in the world’s largest cemetery.

There was always an air of mystery about the Abbe Lorenzo da Ponte. A scholarly poet, teacher and priest with a devoted wife, he also had a reputation as a womaniser. Da Ponte charmed all he met, pioneering the place of Italian music in American life. But his self-assurance also excited mistrust. When the first Italian opera was performed in New York in 1825, he had the nerve to claim he had written it.

Like the memoirs he had recently written, to pay off more debts, the old man was so full of tall stories … Here for the first time is the true story of the man who wrote Mozart.