Staging Life: On Da Ponte's Memone
JOHANNA BOREK
According to the two editors of the book, Ästhetik der Inszenierung, the "'staging'
factor" has become so popular in the past twenty years that "it has apparently
established itself as a new keyword;"1 so much so, that there is hardly any aspect of
politics, fashion, gender, football, history, the body, publishing, or eroticism that has
not been examined in terms of staging. Indeed, it is not too far-fetched to suspect
that the concept has become an empty shell due to overuse.
However, there is no doubt that someone who is telling his/her own story is telling it
to an audience or readership - one that still needs to be found for the story - and
that this requires a dramaturgy for the narrator to stage him/herself as the
protagonist, to assign the other roles to selected members of the cast, and to
structure the story in acts and scenes to be chosen and arranged. To do this requires
cultural models which the narrators of their own biographies can emulate. In a
number of studies,2 British historian Peter Burke has demonstrated the importance
of acting in public - displaying an orientation towards the theatrical - in the urban
centres of Italy since the sixteenth century, as well as the significance not only of
language and speech, but of the emergence of discourses self-reflexively concerned
with language and speech. In eighteenth-century Venice, the idea that the public
arena was a stage on which people played themselves (or where they concealed
themselves behind masks as they pretended to be other people) was so widespread
and deeply ingrained in society that one could rightly call self-staging second nature
to those who played their parts. So when a seventy-year old teacher of Italian hailing
from the province of Veneto tried to sell Italian books to New Yorkers in 1819 and
published Extract from the Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, with the History of Several
Dramas, Written by Him, and when four years later this man started writing and
publishing a detailed biography telling the story of a rather turbulent life, not only
1 Josef Früchtl, Jörg Zimmermann, "Ästhetik der Inszenierung. Dimensionen eines gesellschaftlichen, individuellen und kulturellen Phänomens", Ästhetik der Inszenierung. Dimensionen
eines künstlerischen, kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen Phänomens, ed. Josef Früchtl, Jörg Zimmermann, Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 2001, p. 9—47, here: p. 9.
2 Two publications are interesting in this context: Peter Burke, Städtische Kultur in Italien
zwischen Hochrenaissance und Barock. Eine historische Anthropologie, trans. Wolfgang Kaiser,
Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 1996 (Orig.: The Historical Anthropology of Early Modem Italy,
Cambridge: University Press 1987); and Reden und Schweigen. Zur Geschichte sprachlicher
Identität, trans. Bruni Röhm, Berlin: Wagenbach 1994 (Orig.: The Art of Conversation,
Cambridge: Polity Press 1993).
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did he have the cultural model handy, but he had been carrying it within himself
since childhood. 3
Da Ponte's Memorie were based on a dramaturgy which is no less conspicuous
and deliberate than that of the autobiographies authored by three other great selfstagers of eighteenth-century Venice: Goldoni's Memoires de Μ. Goldoni, pour seruir
a l'histoire de sa vie et a celle de son theatre,4 and Casanova's Histoire de ma vie, as well
as Carlo Gozzi's Memorie inutili5 (although these last are slightly different from
Goldoni's and Casanova's autobiographies). All four autobiographers were dyed-inthe-wool theatre people who knew how to stage their lives in such a way as would
appeal to the audience, including readers in posterity 6 . All four were frequently
3 The Extract was preceded by a Storia compendiosa della vita di Lorenzo Da Ponte scritta da lui
medesimo in 1807, which Da Ponte had written to recruit new students: a brief autobiography
was followed by the text of his first home-spun "lecture on literature" and translation exercises.
The Extract itself served as the introduction to the English translation of the three Mozart
librettos. The actual Memorie di Lorenzo Da Ponte da Ceneda were first published in New York,
initially in four volumes between 1823 and 1827, and in a second edition abridged to three
volumes between 1829 and 1830.
As for the thirty-three years which Da Ponte spent in America from the age of fifty-six to his
death in 1838, see Otto Biba, "Lorenzo Da Ponte in Nordamerika", Lorenzo Da Ponte. Aufiruch
in die Neue Welt (catalogue to coincide with the eponymous exhibition at the Jewish Museum
Vienna), Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz 2006, p. 99-112.
4 "Revenons ä moi, car je suis le heros de la piece", the first chapter says without mincing words
(Mimoires de Μ. Goldoni, pour servir d l'histoire de sa vie et d celle de son thiatre, Paris 1992,
p. 12). Goldoni (1707-1793) wrote his memoirs (dedicated to Louis XVI from whom he received
a pension) between 1784 and 1787, the year they were published in Paris in three volumes. The
protagonist of the second volume is Goldoni's work for the theatre: „La seconde Partie", he
wrote in the introduction, „doit comprendre l'historique de toutes mes Pieces, le secret des
circonstances qui m'en ont foumi 1'argument, la reussite, bonne ou mauvaise, de mes Comedies,
la rivalite que mes succes m'ont excitie, les cabales que j'ai meprisees, les critiques que j'ai
respectees, les satyres qu'en silence j'ai support£es, les tracasseries des Comediens que j'ai
surmontees." (p. 7) The third part deals with the writer's years in France, starting with his
^migration" to Paris in 1762. The perspective is objective, focusing on descriptions and
anecdotes. The French Mimoires are preceded by the so-called Memorie italiane (entitled as
such later on) consisting of introductions to the seventeen volumes of plays published between
1761 and 1778 by the Venetian publisher G.B. Pasquali, in which Goldoni combined a
presentation of his comedies with a description of his life that became increasingly detailed with
each volume.
5 Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) and Goldoni loathed each other; in his memoirs Gozzi's sarcasm and
wit are so caustic and incisive that the irony Da Ponte, Goldoni and Casanova turned against
their enemies seems comparatively civilised. The three volumes of the Memorie inutili della vita
di Carlo Gozzi, scritte da lui medesimo e pubblicate per umilta were published with Stamperia
Palese in Venice and dated 1797, although they were not in fact published until 1798. As Gozzi
remarks, closing his "useless memoirs," "Siamo al giorno diciotto di marzo dell'anno 1798, in
cui fo punto fermo alle mie Memorie, per non danneggiare il Palese, e in cui sono ancor vivo."
(Carlo Gozzi, Scritti, ed. Ettore Bonora, Turin 1977, p. 155)
6 Although he wrote one play for the Teplitz court theatre of Princess Clary: Le Polemoscope ou
la Calomnie d&nasquiepar la presence d'esprit (1791), and contributed the alternative versions
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implicated, when not actually embroiled in scandals; and all four were intimately
acquainted with all the theatrical and social connotations of the word "intrigue."
They retrospectively custom-tailored the roles they wanted to play in their lives;
after all, it was part of their trade to do so, and the act of writing became the work
involved in the staging of their own histories.
However, Da Ponte's audience was not restricted to a later readership. According
to his own admission in the Memorie, the Extract was written to pre-empt attempts
by spoilsports to slander him after his multiple bankruptcies as he returned to
"Nuova Jorca" after an absence of fourteen years and a series of business failures in
Sunbury and Elizabethtown. Thus, his description of his trials and tribulations was
a kind of prophylactic apology.
Be that as it may, posterity and potential slanderers were not the only ones w h o
attended Da Ponte's staging. Throughout the Memorie he constructs himself to
appeal to one part of the audience - the good guys, the sponsors and patrons, the
friends - while confronting another part of the audience - the baddies, the rivals, the
envious, the schemers and frauds. In Gorizia, where he lived after he had been to
Treviso and Venice (but before he moved to Dresden and Vienna), Da Ponte wrote
his way into high society by an encomion for the son of Count Cobenzl on the
occasion of the Peace of Teschen, introducing the two parties as follows:
"Andavano tutti a gara nel compartirmi favori e benefizi. [...] Amavano essi e me e i
versi miei. [...] La dolcezza ch'io provava nelle loro beneficenze mi facea benedire
sovente le mie passate disawenture. Io abitava in una povera cameretta, presa a pigione da me nella casa d'un mercantuccio di grano. [...] La semplicita del mio tugurio
tribution to Da Ponte's and Mozart's Don Giovanni by Η. E. Weidinger in this book), Giacomo
Casanova (1725-1798) was the only one of the four autobiographers who did not write for the
theatre. He was the son of an actor and an actress named Giovanna Maria Farussi who had
become well known in Dresden as "la Buranella". Moreover, Casanova had many contacts in the
theatrical circles of various cities, especially Paris, dating from his first stay there (1750-1753).
The sixty-five-year old Casanova started writing his memoirs at the castle of Dux where his
career as an adventurer ended when he became librarian to Count Waldstein. Reminiscent of
the story behind the publication of Diderot's Neveu de Rameau, the story behind the
publication of Casanova's memoirs is quite strange: in 1820 Casanova's great-nephew Carlo
Angiolini sold the manuscript to the Leipzig publisher Brockhaus who had it translated into
German and edited by Wilhelm von Schütz between 1822 and 1828, and published it in twelve
volumes. The first volumes were received with keen interest in German-speaking countries,
inspiring the French publisher Tournachon-Molin to have the text re-translated into French and
published in fourteen volumes in Paris 1825-1829, thereby prompting Brockhaus to publish the
French original. Jean Laforgue, a professor of French living in Dresden, was entrusted with
revising the content and style of the memoirs, and twelve volumes of a polished version of the
Casanova autobiography were subsequently published in Leipzig between 1826 and 1838. To
evade censorship in Saxonia, volumes 5 to 7 were officially published in Paris, and the remaining
volumes in Brussels. The first complete and unedited version based on the manuscript dates
from the years 1960-1962 (Wiesbaden/Paris, 12 volumes) until which time Brockhaus (the
publishing house had meanwhile moved to Wiesbaden) had kept the manuscript under wraps.
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non era perö di alcun impedimento alle visite, che continuamente mi si facevano.
Tutti gli amatori delle muse vollere conoscermi. Chi lo faceva per ammirare, chi forse
per la speranza di trovare di che criticarmi. U n certo Colletti, che di caporale era
diventato stampatore italiano, e che, sognato avendo d'esser poeta, soffrir non
poteva gli applausi miei senza noia, disse un giorno pubblicamente ch'io non dovea
esser l'autor di quella canzone sulla pace, giaccl^ non avea poi per diversi mesi alcun
altro verso composto. Era stimolato costui dal pungiglione del cacoete poetico. O g n i
giorno usciva qualche nuova lubricazione della sua mal prolifica comamusa f . . . ] . " 7
The divided audience, the antithesis of standing ovations and catcalls, is one of the
fundamental rhetorical figures of the Memorie.
The common feature of Goldoni's, Casanova's, Gozzi's and Da Ponte's autobiographies is that they differ fundamentally from the one autobiography that can be
considered the seminal modern examplar of the genre: Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
Confessions.8 Their histoires, memoires and memorie were written after the posthumous publication of Rousseau's autobiography in Geneva between 1782 and 1789,
and they neither embrace Rousseau's pathetic self-exposure ("Voilä ce que j'ai fait, ce
que j'ai pense, ce que je fus. J'ai dit le bien et le mal avec la meme franchise. Je n'ai
rien tu de mauvais, rien ajoute de bon [.. .])" 9 , nor his claim to general validity ( " Q u i
que vous soyez, que ma destinee ou ma confiance ont fait l'arbitre de ce cahier, je
vous conjure par mes malheurs, par vos entrailles, et au nom de toute l'espece
humaine, de ne pas aneantir un ouvrage utile et unique, lequel peut servir de premiere
pi£ce de comparaison pour l'etude des hommes, qui certainement est encore ä
commencer [...])" , 0 > and much less his assertion of originality and uniqueness ("Je
forme une entreprise qui n'eut jamais d'exemple et dont l'execution n'aura point
d'imitateur. Je veux montrer ä mes semblables un homme dans toute la verite de la
nature; et cet homme ce sera moi. Moi seul." 11 ). Instead, the four Venetians remain
true to older models of autobiographic writing: the vita; or the presentation of one's
own intellectual and/or artistic development; the memoir, in which the first-person
narrator is primarily a close observer of his environment and witness of the times;
and the (fictitious) story of a hero's life as exemplified in the picaresque novel 12 .
These models do not conform with what Philippe Lejeune calls the autobiographical
7 Lorenzo Da Ponte, Memorie. Libretti mozartiani, Mailand: Garzanti 1976, pp. 65-66.
8 The title quotes the famous work The Confessions of St. Augustine (written around 400), which
differ significantly from Rousseau's Confessions as they are organised around an axis of
reclamation and deal with a confession to God, rather than a worldly readership.
9 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les confessions, Paris: Hachette 1956, p. 25.
10 Rousseau, Confessions, p. 23.
11 Rousseau, Confessions, p. 25.
12 These genres are exemplified by Benvenuto Cellini's Vita, written between 1558 and 1566; the
Mtooires of the Duke of Saint-Simon, written between 1694 and 1752; and the anonymous
Vida de Lazanllo de Tormesy de sus fortunas y adversidades (1554).
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pact, 13 nor do they even pretend that they seek the resolution or insight into their
lives implied by such a pact. While Rousseau's most important priority in the
Confessions is self-imposed unconditional honesty and authenticity, Goldoni, Gozzi,
Casanova and Da Ponte want to please the audience with their memoirs; they want
to win over the audience which is why they use the most interesting, captivating and
thrilling text: the successful mise en scene.
Thus, it does not make sense to reproach Da Ponte post festum for his frequent
departures from "the truth" and distortion of "the facts", nor for his self-censoring
and fabrication. It is equally futile to be astonished by how little Da Ponte wrote in
his Memorie about his collaboration with his "caro amico" Mozart - or Mozzart, as
he spelled the name. For Da Ponte there existed no other categories of music than
"exceptional", "mediocre" and "disastrous". Although he repeatedly called Mozart a
"genio", he used the same word for Martin y Soler, among others: the semantic
content of the word "genio" does not go beyond "exceptional talent". From Da
Ponte's perspective there is no room for the category of the genius as a phenomenon
that cannot be measured with a human yardstick. After all, with the exception of
Diderot's aesthetic considerations dating from the 1750s, the concept of the genius is
a product of the later eighteenth century 1 4 . Hence, it would be unreasonable to
reproach Da Ponte for not having identified Mozart's genius: besides, Mozart
similarly did not think along such lines about himself.
In his Memoires Goldoni unerringly staged himself as the serene man born under a
lucky star, free from all contradictions and melancholy in spite of all vagaries of
fortune, although his contemporaries, letters and other documents, as well as the
subtext of the Memoires themselves clearly bespeak contradictions and melancholy.
13 Cf. Philippe Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique, Paris: Seuil 1975, and Je est un autre.
L'autohiographie, de la littärature aux midias, Paris: Seuil 1980. Lejeune's work led to a tum in
autobiography research for which he was criticised. Nevertheless, the „autobiographic pact" has
reached the status of a technical term used by general consensus.
14 In 1745 Diderot had translated Shaftesbury's Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit (1699) and
caught the bug of the latter^ notion of enthusiasm, which laid the foundation for Diderot's own
idea of the ingenious artist. Starting from the late 1760s, Diderot retracted much of what he had
said, and in his later Paradoxe sur le comidien (Paradoxon concerning the actor, written between
1773 and 1783) it was the actor, of all people, whom he used as an example, arguing that the
actor would cease to be great if he was ravaged by emotions, and that he was required to stay
cold and control himself to arouse feelings in the audience (cf. Johanna Borek, Denis Diderot,
Reinbek 2000). By the same token, Lessing had translated two plays and their theoretical
annexes by a young, enthusiastic and emotional Diderot in 1760 - Le Fils naturel (The
Illegitimate Son, 1757) and Le Pire defamilk (The Father of the Family, 1758) - publishing them
under the title Das Theater des Herrn Diderot. Lessing adopted the idea of the genius and
continued developing it in his Hamburg Dramaturgy, thus creating the prerequisites for the
aestheticism of the genius pervasive in the Sturm und Drang era and its consequences (cf.
Jochen Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens in der deutschen Literatur, Philosophie und
Politik 1750-1945,vol. 1: Von der Aufklärung bis zum Idealismus, Darmstadt 1985).
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By contrast, the role in which Da Ponte presents himself is less serene, as from the
outset he confronts too many adversaries who schemed against him with growing
aggression after the end of his stay in Vienna, and too many claqueurs whose
insincere clapping competed with the genuine applause of the dwindling audience
members who were well-disposed towards his work. Da Ponte's first-person narrator
was the person perpetually pursued by enemies, the innocent man who is constantly
drawn into perfidious machinations through no fault of his own: this is the role of
the victim, but nevertheless a victim who, with the help of the good guys, the friends,
those who genuinely love him, eventually triumphs over the vicissitudes, or wisely
evades them by taking flight. Da Ponte hardly ever moved voluntarily. He escaped
jealous husbands, creditors and the Venetian inquisition; he left Dresden on the run
from the strict father of two daughters with whom he was in love, and fled Venice to
evade a plot organised against him. After the death of his patron Joseph II ended a
period he described as "the happiest time of my life", Da Ponte left Vienna, fleeing
the rivals and mortal enemies (he neglected to acknowledge he himself had made
them his enemies) once they were at liberty to act openly under the reign of Leopold
who himself disliked Da Ponte. He left London on the run from creditors and
boarded a ship to America. The geographic distances he covered after landing in
America may have been shorter than they had been in Europe as Da Ponte fled from
one bankruptcy, failed undertaking, and financial disaster after another; but he
stumbled through more of the same as he moved between Sunbury, Elizabethtown,
and New York
Prior to this stage, Da Ponte had gradually strayed from the straight and narrow.
Born under the name Emanuele Conegliano at Ceneda / Vittorio Veneto in 1749 as
the son of a Jewish father and of Rachele Pincherle, he was fourteen years old when
he and his siblings converted to Catholicism because his father wanted to marry a
Christian woman after the death of his first wife, and had to be baptised along with
his children. At this point, as was customary, Emanuele assumed the name of the
bishop who solemnised the baptism. The Memorie say nothing about his religious
conversion or change of name, but they do not conceal that Da Ponte bought his
education, because more than anything else he wanted to study. He attended a
seminary, leading to his ill-fated ordination as an abate; he celebrated mass in Venice
where he ran up gambling debts and had affairs; and he taught at the seminary of
Treviso until his license to teach was revoked on grounds of unorthodoxy.
In representing this period of his life in the Memorie, Da Ponte merely states the
place and date of birth, mentions his mother's death when he was five, and introduces
some information about an incompetent teacher from whom nobody could have
benefited, not even someone endowed for the rest of his life with the kind of
advantages of character he declares to be communis opinio, and who was fully aware
of the aesthetic advantages of such self-representation:
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"Si credeva da tutti ch'io fossi dotato di una memoria e d'un ingegno poco comune, per la
mia vivacitä nel parlare, per una certa prontezza nel rispondere, e sopra tutto per
un'insaziabile curiositä di tutto sapere."15
The audience has assembled; he is appreciated. The public appreciates the talents of
the eighteenth-century ideal man that Da Ponte endeavoured to embody: wit,
liveliness, a talent for repartee, a curious mind. These were all cardinal virtues in a
society of sociability where the witty, lively, quick and curious are well liked,
recognised, loved, and successful. Qualities like these could almost, although not
entirely, obliterate the bounds of social status that governed the lives of the
intellectual and artistic elites and their noble sponsors and patrons.
A nine-year hiatus found Da Ponte in Vienna (1781-1791), a happy man. The Memorie make little mention of "Mozzart," while considerable space is devoted to
staging Da Ponte's own exploits as a libretto writer. The suggestiveness of the artist
and libertine who does so many things at the same time that it seems incredible is
both symptomatic and delightful. Da Ponte worked on three librettos simultaneously: Don Giovanni for Mozart, L'arbore di Diana for Martin y Soler and Axur, Re
d'Ormus for Salieri. This is the way he wanted us to see him:
"Trovati questi tre soggetti, andai dall'imperadore, gli esposi il mio pensiero e Pinformai
che la mia intenzione era di far queste tre opere contemporaneamente. *Non ci riuscirete!'
mi rispose egli. 'Forse che no,' replicai; 'ma mi proverö. Scriverö la notte per Mozzart e
farö conto di legger 1'Inferno di Dante. Scriverö la mattina per Martini e mi parra di studiar
il Petrarca. La sera per Salieri e sara il mio Tasso.'"16
Dante, Petrarca, Tasso: highlights of Italian literature who serve as sources of
inspiration for a veritable tour deforce. A tour de force which the jack-of-all-trades
stages for us, not yet without more conventional sources of inspiration, such as wine,
tobacco and the kisses of a muse - notably the sixteen-year old daughter of his
housekeeper, who is quite generous with her kisses:
"Trovö assai bello il mio parallelo; e, appena tomato a casa, mi posi a scrivere. Andai al
tavolino e vi rimasi dodici ore continue. Una bottiglietta di 'tockai' a destra, il calamaio nel
mezzo, e una scatola di tabacco di Siviglia a sinistra. Una bella giovinetta di sedici anni
(ch'io avrei voluto non amare che come iiglia, ma ...) stava in casa mia con sua madre,
ch'aveva la cura della famiglia, e venia nella mia camera a suono di campanello, che per
verita io suonava assai spesso, e singolarmente quando mi pareva che l'estro cominciasse a
raffreddarsi: ella mi portava or un biscottino or una tazza di caffe, or niente altro che il suo
bei viso, sempre gaio, sempre ridente e fatto appunto per inspirare l'estro poetico e le idee
spirituose. Io seguitai a studiar dodici ore ogni giorno, con brevi intermessioni, per due
15 Da Ponte, Memorie·, p. 3.
16 Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 125.
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mesi continui, e per tutto questo spazio di tempo eila rimase nella stanza contigua, or con
un libro in mano ed ora coll'ago ο il ricamo, per essere pronta a venir da me al primo tocco
del campanello. Mi si assideva talvolta vicino senza muoversi, senza aprir bocca ne batter
occhio, mi guardava fisso fisso, sorrideva blandissimamente, sospirava e qualche volta parea
voler piangere: alia corte, questa fanciulla fu la mia Calliope per quelle tre opere [...]. Da
principio io le permettea molto sovente tali visite; dovei alfine renderle meno spesse, per
non perdere troppo tempo in tenerezze amorose, di cui era perfetta maestra. La prima
giornata frattanto, tra il 'tockai', il tabacco di Siviglia, il caffe, il campanello e la giovine
musa, ho scritto le due prime scene del Don Giovanni, altre due dell'Arbore di Diana e piü
di meta del Tarar, titolo da me cambiato in Assur. Portai la mattina queste scene a' tre
compositori, che appena volevan credere che fosse possibile quello che cogli occhi propri
leggevano, e in sessantatre giorni le due prime opere erano finite del tutto, e quasi due terzi
dell'ultima." 17
Da Ponte was well liked. By his muse, his composers, the Emperor, and by himself.
Those who envied and schemed against him did not stand a chance - yet.
Da Ponte's travels really began after the disaster in Emperor Leopold's Vienna.
From Vienna, Da Ponte went to Trieste where he married Nancy ("Nanci"), then
moved to London, and from there to New York, Sunbury, Elizabethtown, and finally
back to New York. Like Casanova and Gozzi, Da Ponte continued adding to his
Memorie his experiences in his later years, so the longer the story becomes, the less
relevant are his reports about ever new pages turned in business together with the
inevitable failures, and the more obtrusive are the authorial strategies by which he
depicts himself as the perennial loser haunted by bad luck - until the final happy
ending when he introduces himself as the successful ambassador of Italian language
and culture who tills the ground for Italian opera in the New World.18
At least intermittently, Da Ponte needed to present himself as a happy person
because unhappy people are not well-liked, they do not please audiences. When he
was obviously unhappy - such as he was when he published the Extract - Da Ponte
needed a suitor who would love him just the same. Thus the reader who admires the
man born under a lucky star and who cries for the man who was treated badly by
fortune through no fault of his own, is the driving force that triggers the staging in
the Memorie, and eventually, the reader or audience is supposed to contribute to the
happy ending by according the successful performance a big hand.
The book is positioned somewhere along the blurred boundaries between opera
comica and dramma giocoso, so the ending also gives a fixed form to the genre of the
Memorie. What remains is a little bit of melancholy, and a little bit of ambivalence:
17 Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 125-126.
18 Quite a few facts needed to be corrected here; what really happened is described in Biba, Da
Ponte in Nordamerika, p. 105-106.
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" [ . . . ] tutto quello che ho fatto mi pare e mi parra poco, se prima di tornar alia terra, non
lascio a questa illustre citta tutto il tesoro delle lettere italiane. Per questo nobile desiderio,
se mi vien fatto di riparare al torrente de' mali che da ingrate mani mi cadde addosso
inaspettatamente, nella mia dolente decrepitezza, spero ancora di far vedere che piü d'ogni
ricchezza e comoditä mi sta a cuore la gloria della mal conosciuta mia patria. H o aperto
perciö un magazzino di libri, dove m'assido al cantar del gallo, e non n'esco se non per
pochi momenti, e vi rimango poi fin dopo molt'ore della notte. Son corsi giä cinque mesi
dacche fo il mestier di libraio. Non ho molt'occasioni, per veritä, di sorger dalla mia sedia
in un giorno; i compratori son pochi e rarissimi: ma io ho invece la gioia di veder a ogni
istante venir alia porta mia cocchi e carrozze, e talvolta uscire da quelle le piü belle facce
del mondo, prendendo per isbaglio la mia bottega di libri per la bottega alia mia contigua,
ove si vendono zuccherini e crostate. Perche creda la gente che ho molt'awentori, penso
di porre uno scritto alia finestra, che dice: 'Qui si vendono zuccherini e crostate italiane', e
se per questa burletta alcuno entrerä nel mio magazzino, gli farö vedere il Petrarca ο
qualch'altro de' nostri poeti, e sosterro che sono i nostri piü dolci zuccherini, per chi ha
denti da masticarli." 19
If we remember that Da Ponte had already lost his own teeth half a century earlier,
we must recognize that he no doubt suffered from more than just a little melancholia. The audience addressed by the text may still be present but the crowd has
moved a few feet away from the stage. The enemies have poured out their cornucopia
of ill will over the protagonist; Da Ponte is in debt, as usual, but he hopes to be
discharged. What few friends remain drop in on rare occasions, buying little, and
beautiful women enter Da Ponte's bookshop from time to time only because they
confuse it with the adjacent candy store. The closing phrase is an almost graceful
lazzo, a quid pro quo comparing cakes and candies with Petrarca's sweet verses.
However, Da Ponte, who has been sitting motionless behind his counter, had by then
in fact become merely a spectator of the street scenes in front of his shop window.
Ambivalence and melancholia are characteristic of the finales of the drammi giocosi
Cost fan tutte and Don Giovanni, and even the opera buffa, Le Nozze di Figaro, is
notable for its central ambivalence, as evidenced by Claus Guth's production for the
Salzburg Festival of 2006. Da Ponte's libretto is not the only reason why this is so:
Mozart himself was a cheerful melancholic and a gloomy comedian throughout his
life, especially in his later years,20 and through his collaboration with Da Ponte the
ambiguity seems to have become vibrant, or in any event, to have found its expression in music.
19 Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 394.
20 Cf. Massimo Mila, Mozart. Saggt 1941-1987, ed. Anna Mila Giubertoni, Turin: Einaudi 2006.
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Download Date | 4/26/16 10:06 AM