Lorenzo da Ponte (at birth he was given the name Emanuele Conegliano) was born in the town of Cenedo in the Venetian Republic (now Vittorio Veneto) into a Jewish family. His mother died in 1754 and after her death, his father remarried an Italian, for which he and his children converted to the Catholic faith. At baptism, Emanuele took the name of the bishop who performed the ceremony, Lorenzo da Ponte. From 1769 he studied at the theological seminary in Portogruaro and in 1773 he was ordained a monk. From 1774 to 1776, Abbot da Ponte taught literature and eloquence at the Treviso Seminary. However, his radical views (da Ponte was an admirer of Rousseau) and dissolute behavior led to his expulsion from Treviso and then from Venice, where Casanova was among his close acquaintances. In 1782, Lorenzo da Ponte arrived in Vienna and, at the request of the court composer Antonio Salieri, received the position of court librettist. Here da Ponte wrote three of the most famous librettos set to music by Mozart: “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Don Giovanni” and “That’s What Everyone Do”. He has also written librettos for operas by Salieri (The Talisman, Rich Man for a Day, Aksur, King of Hormuz, The Faithful Shepherd, The Figure), Joseph Weil, Vicente Martin y Soler and other composers. In 1790, due to funding cuts, Da Ponte lost his job and went to Trieste, where he met his future wife, the Englishwoman Nancy Grahl. Lived in Prague and Dresden, Paris and London. After working for thirteen years with now-forgotten composers, da Ponte emigrated to America in 1805. In America, Lorenzo da Ponte translated several English works into Italian and wrote memoirs - “Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte of Cheneda, written by himself” (1823–1827). He taught Italian literature at Columbia University in New York and was the first Catholic priest on the University's faculty. In 1826, he organized the first performance of the opera Don Giovanni in America (Zerlina was sung by Maria Malibran). In 1828, at the age of 79, Lorenzo da Ponte became a United States citizen. Lorenzo da Ponte died at the age of eighty-nine in New York and was lavishly buried in Brooklyn with a large crowd of people. Material from Wikipedia - the Free Encyclopedia.