num_pages: 472
description: Plot and counterplot lie at the heart of Don Giovanni , Così fan tutte , and The Marriage of Figaro , the three brilliant libretti that Lorenzo Da Ponte prepared for Mozart. They were also central to Da Ponte's own extraordinary life. His Memoirs record a fantastic variety of romantic, political, and professional intrigues, and tell of meetings with a host of remarkable men. In a life that took him from the canals of Venice to the streets of New York, Da Ponte was at different times priest, professional gambler, proprietor of a bordello, political agitator, court poet, impresario, grocery store owner, and the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University. His Memoirs , a minor classic of Italian literature, are the picaresque and engrossing story of a man of enormous talent and unsurpassed flair who was, above all, an indefatigable survivor."I shall speak of things . . . so singular in their oddity as in some manner to instruct, or at least entertain, without wearying." —Lorenzo da Ponte
language: English
title: Memoirs
titlecomplete: Memoirs
genres: Biography, Italy, Music, Memoir, Nonfiction, Classics, Biography Memoir, Italian Literature, History
ratings_count: 91
publisher: NYRB Classics