Details
DA PONTE, LORENZO, Italian poet. Partly printed document signed ("Lorenzo da Ponte"), Sunbury, Pennsylvania, 15 January 1816. 1 page, oblong, 78 x 200 mm. (3 x 7 7/8 in.), accomplished in manuscript, lower margin a bit chipped, very lightly browned. MOZART'S LIBRETTIST IN AMERICA. A legal document in which plaintiff Lorenzo da Ponte "enters a rule of reference, determining to have arbitrators chosen" in connection with an unspecified dispute.
Da Ponte (1749-1838), a converted Italian Jew residing in Vienna, wrote the libretti for Mozart's Don Giovanni, Cosí fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro; emigrated to England and, in 1805, to New York (he taught Italian at Columbia University), but spent his last decades in frontier Pennsylvania.
Da Ponte (1749-1838), a converted Italian Jew residing in Vienna, wrote the libretti for Mozart's Don Giovanni, Cosí fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro; emigrated to England and, in 1805, to New York (he taught Italian at Columbia University), but spent his last decades in frontier Pennsylvania.