Mozart and Da Ponte

A Historic Partnership

S H E I L A H O D G E S

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M o z A R T and Da Ponte, whose names are inextricably linked, reached
Vienna in the same year, 1781. Mozart was the first to arrive, on 12
March; Da Ponte followed probably sometime in the autumn. However, it was
not until early in 1783 that they met—at the house of Baron von Wetzlar, where
Mozart and Constanze lived from late 1782 to the end of April 1783. 'Von Wetzlar,
like Da Ponte, was a Jew, which perhaps brought the two men together—
though the baron's wealth and social position no doubt protected him from
the anti-Semitism that dogged Da Ponte even though the latter was a Chris-
tian convert and an ordained priest.
The first of Mozart's operas to have its premiere in Vienna, Die Entfubrung
aus dem Serail, had been a great success when it was put on in 1782. But soon
afterward the emperor decided to dismiss the German company that had been
performing Singspid at the Burgtheater and to reinstate Italian opera. Clearly,
then, Mozart would only be able to make his name known as an opera
composer—which he was passionately anxious to do—if he wrote music to
Italian libretti.
Since his arrival in Vienna, Da Ponte had been without either employment
or money. Throughout his life, however, he had a genius for being in the right
place at the right time; and he had brought with him a letter of recommenda-
tion from his friend Caterino Mazzola, court poet to the Dresden opera
house, to Antonio Salieri, the all-powerful director of music at the Vienna
court. So when the emperor gathered together a splendid group of singers for
his opera house, it was Da Ponte who was appointed poet.
On 7 May 1783 Mozart wrote to his father to say that he had looked through
more than a hundred Italian libretti but could not find one that he liked. "Our
poet here is now a certain Abbate da Ponte. He has an enormous amount to
do in revising pieces for the theatre and he has to write an entirely new libretto
for Salieri, which will take him two months. He has promised after that to
write a new libretto for me."1 In fact, it was to be three years before Da Ponte
fulfilled his promise, and meanwhile Mozart turned his attention to two works
that he never completed—Uoca del Cairo and Lo sposo deluso. It is often sug-
IO SHEILA HODGES

gcsted that the libretto of the latter was written by Da Ponte. Alfred Einstein,
for instance, put forward this theory in 1945, commenting that the poet's
failure to mention the opera in his Memoirs is no proof that he did not write it;
he would have hesitated to claim it as his work, Einstein suggested, because it
was "no fine feather in his cap."2 But the extent to which Da Ponte mentioned
or failed to mention his libretti in the Memoirs is no guide to the importance
he attached to them: there is not a word about several of his other libretti; he is
silent about another authenticated collaboration with Mozart at this time; and
he dismisses his masterpiece Cost fan tutte in one sentence. Another reason for
attributing Lo sposo deluso to his pen, a notion that has been put forward on
several occasions, is that he was the only poet of repute in Vienna at the time.
But in 1783 Da Ponte was far from being a "poet of repute"—he had yet to

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prove his skill—and he himself writes of the many poets prowling hungrily
around who, "like so many pygmies of Parnassus, aspired to be poet to the
court theatre."3
Far more telling is the text itself, which lacks all the hallmarks of a Da Ponte
libretto, including poetry and rhythmic beauty. Even when one takes into
account Da Pont?s inexperience at this time, it seems inconceivable that for
Mozart, of all people, he could have written such nonsense. Moreover, there
are some odd words that are not to be found in his other libretti: pezza and
bendato, for instance (Lepezze amabili del Dio bendato), bile, tetro, sincope, and
above all crudo, which occurs four times. Da Ponte invariably wrote crudele,
and on this evidence alone, even without the other factors, it is surely impossi-
ble that he should be the author of this tenth-rate, botched-up libretto.
So it seems likely that it was the next year, 1784, that witnessed the first
collaboration with Mozart, though the work in question was not an opera but
an ode in honor of Nancy Storace, the chief buffa soprano at the Burgtheater.
She had lost her voice during the first performance of her brother Stephen's
opera Gli sposi malcontenti, and for some months, much to the emperor's
chagrin—he had specially imported her from Venice for his Italian opera
company—was unable to sing. Da Pome's verses, entided Per la ricuperata
salute di Ophelia, were set to music "to be sung at the piano by the three
famous Kapellmeisters: Mozart, Salieri and Cornetti"—the last is unknown;
as the name is in italics, it is very likely a pseudonym. No copy of the music is
known to exist, and the libretto has not been preserved.
Soon afterward, Mozart and Da Ponte began their first operatic collabora-
tion, Le nozze di Figaro, which had its premiere on 1 May 1786. The choice was
obviously influenced by the immense success of Paisiello's U barbiere di Siviglia,
based on the first play in Beaumarchais's Figaro trilogy. Paisiello's opera was
first performed in St. Petersburg on 26 September 1782 and had been seen in
Vienna in August 1783. Mozart must have been afire to show what he could do
in competition with the Viennese public's most popular opera composer.
Passages from Mozart's letters to his father arc often quoted to set forth
what the composer deemed essential in an Italian hbretto. They also show
 MOZART AND DA PONTE II

how immensely demanding he was with his poets. "I should say that in an
opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient daughter of the music. Why
do Italian comic operas please everywhere—in spite of their miserable
libretti? . . . Just because there the music reigns supreme, and when one listens
to it all else is forgotten.. . . The best thing of all is when a good composer,
who understands the stage and is talented enough to make sound suggestions,
meets an able poet, that true phoenix."5
It was just because Da Ponte was able to fulfill those requirements that his
collaboration with Mozart resulted in three of the most sublime operas that
have ever been written. He was not a great poet, or even a very original one;
but he had a geniusforgrasping the needs of the particular composer with
whom he was working andfordivining what each of them was seeking from

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his librettist. He had much of interest to say about the qualities needed to
write good libretti—qualities which, as he rightly claimed, few theater poets
of the day possessed:
If the words of a dramatic poet [he wrote in 1819] are nothing but a
vehicle to the notes, and an opportunity to the action, what is the reason
that a composer of music does not take at once a doctor's recipes [sic],
a bookseller's catalogue, or even a spelling book, instead of the verses of
a poet, and make them a vehicle to his notes, just as an ass is that of a
bag of corn? . . . Mozart knew very well that the success of an opera
depends, FIRST OF ALL, ON THE POET; that without a good poem an
entertainment cannot be perfectly dramatic, just as a picture cannot be
good without possessing the merit of invention, design, and a just pro-
portion of the parts: that a composer, who is, in regard to a drama,
what a painter is in regard to the colours, can never do that with effect,
unless excited and animated by the words of a poet, whose province
is to choose a subject susceptible of variety, incident, movement, and
action; to prepare, to suspend, to bring about the catastrophe; to exhibit
characters interesting, comic, well supported, and calculatedforstage
effect; to write his recitativo short, but substantial, his airs various, new,
and well situated; in fine, his verses easy, harmonious, and almost sing-
ing of themselves, without which all requisites, the notes of the most
sublime and scientific composer will not be felt by the heart, the pas-
sions remaining tranquil, and unmoved, their effect will be transient,
and the best of his airs, after a short time, will be heard with no more
attention or pleasure, than a trio or a sonata. . . . 6
I think that poetry is the door to music, which can be very handsome,
and much admiredforits exterior, but no body can sec its internal
beauties, if the door is wanting.7
Some years later, writing in defense of Rossini (of whose music he had a
very high opinion), Da Ponte laid down other criteriaforlibretti: feeling and
heart, liveliness of affection, truth of characterization, merit of situation, grace
12 SHEILA HODGES

of language, poetic imagery and understanding of how to alternate "the gentle

and the fierce," "die light-hearted and the pathetic," "the pastoral and the
heroic"8
As far as we know, Da Ponte never played a musical instrument (he wrote in
his Memoirs, "I love but do not possess this beautiful art"),9 but that his ear
and mind were attuned to the beauty of music there is no doubt. He had, too,
the keenest appreciation of the beauty of poetry. From his schooldays he had
studied with single-minded passion all the great Latin and Italian writers, for
whom he had a love and respect that amounted to adoration—especially
Dante, Ariosto, Petrarch, and Tasso. He was fluent in writing Italian verse and
in translating from Latin into Italian and Italian into Latin. His love of Italian

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literature was a bond between him and Mozart, who, as Einstein remarks,
"had as a dramatist the finest sense for poetry, both lyric and dramatic"10
whose library contained the works of Metastasio, Gellcrt, and Moliere, and
who, like Da Ponte himself, had studied die vast field of Italian libretti.
Another of Da Pome's gifts was his profound insight into the relationship
between words and music in opera. "In order to translate an opera from one
language into another," he wrote, "it is necessary to know more than just how
to write verse. One must do it in such a way that the accents of the poetry
respond to those of the music, which few can do well, and especially necessary
is a musical ear and long experience."11 No one who studies his libretti and his
other writings can doubt diat music stirred him just as deeply as odier mani-
festations of beauty.
It is tantalizing that we know virtually nothing about how Mozart and Da
Ponte worked togemer. One thing is quite clear, however: the libretti of their
three operas all, in important respects, contradict views that Mozart expressed
very forcibly in letters to his father. For instance, he believed that an Italian
opera should be as comic as possible,12 whereas Da Ponte was convinced that
changes of mood were essential if the listener's sympadiies were to be engaged.
Such changes of mood occur in all the operas they wrote together, and it is
partly this diat has made them immortal and convinces us diat we are observ-
ing not actors playing the parts of stock characters, but human beings strug-
gling with real emotions.
Secondly, Mozart detested rhymes in opera libretti. "An opera is sure of
success," he wrote to his father, 'Svhen the plot is well worked out, the words
written solely for the music and not shoved in here and there to suit some
miserable rhyme (which, God knows, never enhances the value of any theatri-
cal performance, be it what it may, but radier detracts from it)—I mean,
words or even entire verses which ruin die composer's whole idea. Verses are
indeed the most indispensable element for music—but rhymes—solely for
the sake of rhyming—the most detrimental."13 Yet rhymes—which Da Ponte
had taken delight in writing since he was a boy of fourteen and which flowed
from his pen as effortlessly as he breathed—abound in all three operas.14 Both
in die recitatives and in the arias, they add immeasurably to one quality that
 MOZART AND DA PONTE 13

Da Pontc believed to be essential—that the words should "sing themselves."

Rhymes are also used with consummate skill to encapsulate scenes widiin
scenes, changes of mood, and changes in die pace and rhythm of die action.
That me librettiforMozart are so full of rhymes must show that the composer
was persuaded to change his view by observing what they could achieve in the
hands of Da Ponte.
Then again, as Daniela Goldin points out, all three texts "presuppose a
detailed knowledge of literary—and theatrical—Italian tradition, which cer-
tainly cannot be explained as being widiin the 'competence3 of Mozart."15
They show, too, an intimate acquaintance with colloquial speech, with die
modes of expression used by different classes, and with oriicr subdeties of
language that someone whose native tongue was not Italian or who had not

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lived in Italy for long periods would be unlikely to possess. Da Ponte is
particularly adept at underlining class distinctions through die use of language.
Goldin indicates yet anodier way in which Mozart was more willing to be
influenced by Da Ponte dian by any of his odier librettists:
According to his dramatic outlines, for Mozart comicality must be
expressive, violent, often absurd, alia Schikaneder. Da Ponte, on die
odier hand, is never aggressive or excessively comic, and all his libretti
are full of literary, cultured elements, not least because [he] is a con-
vinced Arcadian, as was Goldoni. . . . However, his literary education
did not permit [him] to abandon his ideals of metre, of stylistic control
or of cultural commitment, even in the texts which apparently are least
committed . . . Juvenal, Ovid, Horace, Sannazzaro, Dante, Ariosto,
etc.; poets ancient and modern are used by Da Ponte even in diis minor
form of literature.16
Da Ponte describes in the Memoirs how he and Mozart chose Le nozze di
Figaro for their first collaboration:
After the great success of Burbero17 I went to Mozart and . . . asked him
whether he would like to set to music a libretto which I would write for
him. "I should be delighted," he replied at once, "but Fm certain I
shouldn't get permission."18 "Leave that to me," I answered. I quietly
began to consider what dramas I should chooseformy two dear friends
Mozart and Martini.19 So far as the first was concerned, I knew without
a shadow of doubt diat his all-encompassing genius demanded a subject
which would be vast in scope, many-faceted, sublime. One day, when I
was talking it over with him, he asked if I could reduce to operatic
length the comedy by Beaumarchais entided Le nozze di Figaro. I liked
the idea, and promised him that I would do so.20
In his preface to the opera, Da Ponte cautiously justifies the choice of
Beaumarchais's sequel to Le barbier de Simile. In France Le manage de Figaro
had been banned from the stage for diree years, and die emperor had given
14 SHEILA HODGES

instructions that it was not to be put on in Vienna unless it was severely

pruned. Da Ponte was justly proud of his adaptation, which drastically reduces
the text and eliminates five characters. Though he keeps more closely to the
original than in some of his other adaptations, the changes called for in
turning a play into an opera necessitated the introduction of much new mate-
rial, to form the basis of arias, ensembles, choruses, and recitatives. This
material not only provides poetry worthy of Mozart's ravishing music but also
does much to heighten the characterization. Consider, for instance, Cheru-
bino's two arias: the first (no. 6) is an inspired adaptation of Beaumarchais's
cool and elegant prose, while the second (no. n) owes nothing at all to the
French text but is pure Da Ponte, as arc die Countess's aria "Dove sono i
bei momenti" (no. 19), which gives her such added depth and pathos,

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Marcellina's aria in defense of women (no. 24), and Figaro's stirring song (no.
9) as he paints for a horrified Cherubino the glories that await him on the field
of battle.
Da Ponte's skill is everywhere to be seen in Figaro, for, with a text that in
length is a mere fraction of Beaumarchais's, nothing of importance is lost from
the plot. And there are innumerable Da Pontean touches, such as Figaro's
famous aria "Se vuol ballare, signor contino" (no. 3), with the contemptuous
diminutive of the count's tide, which is surely inspired by Figaro's remark in
the French text (but much later in the play), "Et puis dansez, Monseigneur."
The characters of Susanna and Figaro are sharpened through their racy, collo-
quial dialogue and through other small but significant touches.
How much would one give to be transported back to Vienna when Mozart
and Da Ponte were writing their operas together! For write them together
they surely must have done, with Da Ponte grasping exacdy what Mozart
wanted almost before the words had left the composer's mouth—that, for
instance, in the scene where Cherubino is hiding in the Countess's closet and
the Count has marched his wife off to fetch tools to break open the door (when
they return, he is bearing pincers and a hammer, neither item particularly
suitable for the job), what was needed was verse with the lightest of touch,
verse that could be sung almost in a breath (no. 14):
Aprite, presto, aprite:
Aprite, e la Susanna.
Sortite, via, sortitc,
Andate via di qua.
Open up, hurry, open up:
Open up, it's Susanna.
Come out, quickly, come out,
Go on, get out of there.
Or take Figaro's aria "Non piu andrai, farfallone amoroso" (no. 9), the words
so languorous and seductive as they describe Cherubino's life among the
 MOZART AND DA PONTE 15

ladies; so stirring and masculine, to suit Mozart's bombastic, swaggering

music, as Figaro outlines the fate awaiting the hapless page once he is dis-
patched to the battlefield.
Then mere is Susanna's aria in the last act, "Deh, vieni, non tardar" (no. 27),
the music of which refers back to die "letter duet." This is generally regarded
as a tender expression of Susanna's love for Figaro. But there is another
interpretation that is more interesting and that, to my mind, is a more con-
vincing explanation of the intentions of composer and librettist. Susanna is
clever, inventive, mischievous, and an excellent actress; there is, I believe, a
good casefordoubting whether it is in character for her to sing an aria so full
of poetry and romance. Her recitative and aria are immediately preceded by a
quick, sotto voce aside that shows she is quite aware that Figaro is lurking

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behind a bush, jealously observing and listening:
H birbo e sentella.
Divertiamci anche noi.
Diamogli la merce? de5 dubbi suoi.
The rascal's on guard.
Let's have a bit of fun
And pay him backforhis suspicions.
Then she embarks on what is surely a "take-ofP on the languishing airs with
which a high-born lady might have expressed her emotions as she waited for
her lover. Susanna, in her disguise as the Countess, is vasdy enjoying herself as
she gives a brilliant imitation of her aristocratic mistress.
It is unlikely that composer and librettist were friends in a social sense, for
their natures were too dissimilar. But in the writing of opera there was the
most profound understanding between them, not least in their senses of
humor. This is shown above all in Figaro, for instance, in the scene where the
valet learns that he is Marcellina's son, and in the bamboozling of the Count
and the befuddled Antonio after Cherubino has jumped out of the window.
"The result was a libretto of such richness that a dramatically sensitive com-
poser like Mozart was able to underscore and comment ironically on even the
smallest details, to interpret them through musical associations, by means of
orchestral color and every technical trick at his disposal."21

Don Giovanni, the second operatic collaboration between Mozart and Da

Ponte, was based on the one-act opera by Giovanni Bertati, whose seventy or
so libretti include thatforCimarosa's II matrimonio segrcto. Da Ponte had a low
opinion of Bertati, but the latter possessed an excellent sense of stagecraft and
plot construction. His Don Giovanni had been writtenforthe Venice carnival
of 1787; and Da Ponte, commissioned later in the same year to write libretti for
16 S H E I L A H O D G E S

three different composers, including Mozart, no doubt fell upon it with relief.
Though in general he followed Bertati's action scene by scene for the first act
and thefinale(most of the second act, of course, he had to invent), textually he
shook himself almost entirely free. His text is incomparably superior to
Bertati's, which lacks refinement, poetry, and delineation of character. Da
Ponte's libretto gave Mozart the opportunity to write music expressing greater
diversities of mood than are to be found in either Figaro or Cost—passion,
histrionics, melting sensuousness, tenderness, solemnity, comedy, brutality,
and terror.
As in Le nozze di Figaro, Da Ponte's use of rhyme is particularly effective,
especially in the ensembles—such as the quartet between Donna Elvira, Donna
Anna, Don Giovanni, and Don Ottavio in the scene after Giovanni has first

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tried to seduce Zerlina (no. 9).
The first duct of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio is an instance of Da Ponte's
ability to encapsulate, by his use of rhyme, a particular mood, as Donna Anna,
reviving from her swoon, believes at first that the man bending over her is her
betrayer (no. 2):
DONN'ANNA: Fuggi, crudele, fuggi!
Lascia che mora anch'io
Ora ch'e morto, oddio!
Chi a me la vita die.
DON OTTAVIO: Send, cor mio, deh! senti,
Guardami un solo istante:
Ti parla il caro amante
Che vive sol per te.
DONN'ANNA: TU sci. . . Perdon, mio bene . . .
Eaffanno mio .. . lc pene . . .
Ah! il padre mio doVe?
DON OTTAVIO: II padre . . . Lascia, o cara,
La rimembranza amara:
Hai sposo e padre in me.
DONNA ANNA: Leave me, cruel one, leave me!
Leave me too to die,
Now, oh God, now he is dead
Who gave me life.
DON OTTAVIO: Listen, beloved, I beg you, listen!
Look at me for a moment:
It is your loved one who is talking to you,
He who lives onlyforyou.
DONNA ANNA: It is you . . . Forgive me, my dearest. . .
My distress . . . my grief...
Ah! Where is my father?
DON OTTAVIO: Your father . . . Banish, loved one,
 MOZART AND DA PONTE 17

The bitter memory.

"Xbu have husband and father in me.
A similar example is Zcrlina's aria "Vedrai, carino" (no. 19), in which she
consoles Masetto to the strains of some of Mozart's most tender and inspired
measures.
Then there is the trio where Don Giovanni sets out to seduce Donna Elvira's
maid, commanding Leporello to exchange clothes with him and to keep Elvira
safely out of the way by wooing her while disguised as his master. Here the
poetry is written in such a way that the words blend together with total
harmony (one can think of the three four-line verses as being, so to speak,
superimposed one upon another), while each of the soliloquies remains true

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to the emotional state, situation, and turn of speech of die character (no. 16):
DONN'ELVIRA: (fra si)
Dei, che cimento e questo?
Non so s'io vado o resto . . .
Ah! proteggete voi
La mia credulita.
DON GIOVANNI: (fra se)
Spero che cada presto.
Che bel colpetto e questo!
Piu fertile talento
Del mio, no, non si da.
LEPORELLO: (fra s£)
Gia qucl mendace labbro
Toma a sedur costei:
Deh! proteggete, o Dei,
La sua credulita.
DONNA ELVIRA: (aside)
What a test this is!
I don't know what is happening . . .
Oh gods, I implore you,
Protect my credulous heart.
DON GIOVANNI: (aside)
I hope she will soon yield.
What a pretty little coup this is!
A talent more fertile than mine
Is not to be found anywhere.
LEPORELLO: (aside)
That lying tongue is already
Intent on seducing hen
Oh gods, protect her,
Protect her credulous heart.
18 SHEILA HODGES

The clever delineation of character and class through the use of language
that had been so successful in Le nozze di Figaro is handled with even greater
subtlety in Don Giovanni—by means, for instance, of the Metastasian flights
of Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, and even of Donna Elvira ("She talks just
like a printed book!" Leporello exclaims admiringly) and the plebeian turn of
speech of the less exalted personages. Particularly noteworthy is die scene
(already mentioned in connection with Da Pontcfs use of rhyme) in which
Leporello pretends that he wants to seduce Donna Elvira. For once he is at a
loss for words and replies to her passionate advances in a ridiculously stilted
fashion. "Muso bello!" (Beautiful mug!) he cries, using a vulgar term that
would have been impossible for Don Giovanni, and replying to her "Son per

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voi tutta fuoco" (I am all aflame for you) with "Io tutto cenere" (I am reduced
to ashes). However, as he warms to his task—"II birbo siriscalda"(The rascal is
warming up), Don Giovanni remarks from his hiding-place—his language
becomes correspondingly more flowing and appropriate.
Right at the end of the opera there is another scene that emphasizes social
standing through the linguistic idioms of the characters: as Anna and Ottavio
lament in tones of high tragedy that diey must sacrifice their love to a year of
mourning, Elvira declares that she intends to spend the rest of her life in a
convent. Zerlina and Masetto bring us back to earth by announcing that diey
are going home to have a cozy supper together, while Leporello declares his
intention of repairing to the inn to find a better master. The last three join in a
jolly, heartless little trio consigning Don Giovanni to the nether regions:
Resti dunque quel birbon
Con Proserpina e Pluton.
So let the wretch stay
Widi Prosperina and Pluto.
Goldin remarks that just as Mozart distinguishes Zerlina, Donna Elvira,
Donna Anna, the Commendatore, and so on, by framing each of them within
a particular musical tradition, so Da Ponte sets each of his characters within
distinct linguistic and stylistic traditions.22 He also improves Bertati's text
dramatically by cutting the tatter's interminable recitatives, thus following his
own rule that the recitatives should be short and to the point.
The splendid finale to act i is pure Da Ponte: "This finale in Italian operas"
he wrote, "though strictly connected with the other parts of the drama, is a
kind of little comedy by itself: it requires a distinct plot, and should be
particularly interesting: in this part arc chiefly displayed the genius of the
composer and the power of the singers; and for this is reserved the most
striking effect of the drama."23
The first performance of Don Giovanni was scheduled for mid-October 1787,
and Mozart, having written most of the music, went off to Prague, where the
opera was to have its premiere. Da Ponte followed, staying there for eight days
 MOZART AND DA PONTE 19

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LeopoldMozart with his children Wolfgang, age 7, and Marianne, age n, ca. 1763.
Engraving by]. B. Delajbsse, based on a. painting byL.C.de Carmontelle.
(Historical Pictures Service, Chicago.)
2O SHEILA HODGES

to direct the actors but leaving before the first night. He claims that Mozart
wrote to him at once to tell him what a runaway success it had been:
"Guardasoni [the Italian impresario who produced Don Giovanni] came into
my room this morning almost enraptured with joy. Xong live Mozart, long
live Da Ponte' said he: 'as long as mey shall exist, no manager shall know
distress.' Adieu! my dear friend. Prepare another opera for your friend
Mozart!"24 However, there is no trace of this letter, which may have existed
only in the imagination of Da Ponte, writing about it many years later.
There was to be no further major collaboration between the two men for the
next couple of years, though when Don Giovanni came to Vienna in May 1788
Da Ponte wrote texts for three substitute arias. There was also what the libret-

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tist called a pasticcio—L'apt musicale—with a text based on Goldoni, linked by
arias that he chose from the operas of some of the most popular contemporary
composers. Mozart was represented by a parody of "Li ci darem la mano" of
which Da Ponte was particularly fond. In a preface to the opera he described
Eape musicale as "a kind of little comedy that—now parodying, now chang-
ing, now retaining the original words—introduces the finest arias which we
have so far heard in our operas." The program was varied from night to night,
and on other evenings "Voi che sapete" and "Non piu andrai" were given.

In the last of the operas Mozart and Da Ponte wrote together, Cost fan tuttc or
La scuola dcgli amanti (Da Ponte always referred to it by its subtitle), their
collaboration reached a point of unsurpassed perfection and harmony. It is
strange that the opera was written when both composer and librettist were
passing through periods of bleakness in their lives: Mozart was beset by
money troubles, and Da Ponte was desperately struggling to keep his position
at court. Nothing of this is revealed by any lapse in the radiance of the opera,
which must surely be an indication of the empathy that existed between the
men when they worked together, able to shut off the outside world as they
became absorbed in the interplay of their shared creative process.
Countless pages have been filled with speculation as to the provenance of
the libretto. The basic plot had been a favorite among storytellers for centuries
(no one expected libretti to have original plots), but so far as is known the
actual text is Da Ponte's own. He himself gives us no clue, his only recorded
mention of the work being a reference to it as holding the "third place among
the sisters born of this most celebrated father of harmony"25
Designed for the carnival of 1790, Cost pokes fun at the conventions of opera
seria^ at the same time showing much insight into the human heart. What
brilliant parody, for instance, in the scene where Don Alfonso tells Fiordiligi
and Dorabella that their lovers have been summoned to thefieldof battle, the
crocodile hesitation of his words ("Balbettando il labbro va," no. 5) heightened
by the equally hesitant syncopation of the accompaniment. When at last the
 MOZART AND DA PONTE 21

young men havefinishedmaking their sad farewells, how tellingly the strong
and vigorous consonants of the chorus (no. 8) —
II fragor di trompe e pifferi,
Lo sparar di schioppi e bombe
The sound of trumpets and fifes,
The din of guns and shells
—are reflected in the martial accompaniment, while in the trio that follows
their departure, "Soave sia il vento" (no. 10), the melting beauty of the words
is reinforced by music that suggests the murmur of the waves and the rusde of
the wind as the boat is borne away.

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One particularly interesting aspect of the opera is the exploration of charac-
ter of the two pairs of lovers and the transformation that occurs once real
emotions—jealousy and disillusionment on the part of the men, self-doubt
and abandonment to thefirstgenuine passion they have ever felt on the part of
the women—take the place of conventional lovers' sighs. The first of
Fiordiligi's two great arias, "Come scoglio" (no. 14)—written to display the
formidable range of the soprano, Adriana del Bene CTLa Ferrarese"), Da rente's
mistress—is an artificial showpiece set to equally artificial music, whereas in
"Per pieta, ben mio, perdona" (no. 25), Fiordiligi is singing from her heart, her
very real anguish mirrored in music that convinces the listener thatforthe first
time she is expressing genuine emotion. Similarly the duet of the two lovers,
"Secondate, aurette amiche" (no. 21), stilted and conventional, is totally differ-
ent from Ferrando's jealous anger in "In qual fiero contrasto" (no. 26). Here
again Mozart's music makes it quite clear that on thefirstoccasion Ferrando is
aping amorous convention, whereas on the second he has come to life and
feels deeply what he is singing.
The changes of mood that Da Ponte regarded as being so important are no
less effective in this opera because—as the audience is aware—the "tragedy" is
spoof. But though for much of the time the words and music reflect artificial
emotions, they are no less moving for all that. And how delicious is the
comedy! It is inconceivable that Mozart and Da Ponte did not have enormous
fun creating Cost, just as they did when writing Figaro. Composer and libret-
tist, both with a lively sense of the ridiculous, surely relished the comic
artificiality of the scene where the four lovers arc left alone in the festive garden
prepared by Don Alfonso. They are tremendously shy of one another and talk
in the stilted fashion of teenagers thrown together for the first time with
members of the opposite sex:
FIORDILIGI: Oh, che bella giornata!
FERRANDO: Caldetta anche no.
DORABELLA: Che vezzosi arboscelli!
GUGLIELMO: Ccrto, certo, son belli:
Han piu foglie che frutti.
22 SHEILA HODGES

FIORDELIGI: Oh, what a lovely day!

FERRANDO: Rather on the warm side.
DORABELLA: What charming little trees!
GUGLIELMO: Yes, yes, how beautiful they are.
They've got more leaves than fruit!
The last line is assuredly one of the most mischievously and deliberately banal
in the whole history of opera.
Another facet of Cost is the way in which Da Ponte, with even greater
mastery than in his other Mozart operas, seems to be toying with the rhymes,
tossing them hither and thither, underlying the impression that the whole
opera gives of playing with consummate skill, both in the music and in the

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libretto, with the opera seria conventions of the day. Once again rhymes are
used to point up and encapsulate changes of mood and scenes-within-sccnes.
There is also a good deal of subdc internal rhyming, such as in Dorabella's aria
(no. 28):
E amore un ladroncello,
Un serpentello e amor.
Ei toglic e da la pace,
Come gli piace, al cor.
Love is a little thief,
A little serpent,
He gives peace to our hearts,
Or steals it away, just as he pleases.
The finale to the first act again shows Da Ponte's cleverness in writing ensem-
bles in which the verses of the different singers fit together so well that the
composer can intertwine them in total harmony:
DESPINA E DON ALFONSO:
(frase)
Un quadrctto piu giocondo
Non si vide in tutto il mondo.
Qucl che piu mi fa da ridere
E quclTira c quel furor. (a
FERBANDO E GUGLIELMO:
(frase)
Un quadrctto piu giocondo
Non ste visto, in qucsto mondo.
Ma non so se finta o vera
Sia quell'ira e quel furor.
 MOZART AND DA PONTE

FIORDILIGI E DORABELLA:
Disperati, attossicati,
Ite al diavol quanti siete!
Tardi inver vi pentirete,
Se piu cresce il mio furor!
DESPINA E DON ALFONSO:
(frast)
Un quadretto piu giocondo
Non si vide in tutto il mondo.
Quel die piu mi fa da ridere
E quell'ira e quel furor,

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Ch'io ben so chc tanto fuoco (a set, insieme con Viordiligi
Cangerassi in quel d'amor. e Dorabclla chc ripetono
FERRANDO E GUGLIELMO: la low quartina)
(frase)
Un quadretto piu giocondo
Non s*e visto, in qucsto mondo.
Ma non so se finta o vera
Sia quell'ira e quel furor.
Ne" vorrei die tanto fuoco
Terminasse in quel d'amor.
DESPINA AND DON ALFONSO:
(aside)
A more amusing little picture
Is not to be seen the world over.
But what makes me laugh most
Is all this rage and fury. (quartet)
FERRANDO AND GUGLIELMO:
(aside)
A more amusing little picture
Has never been seen the world over.
But I don't know if it's feigned or real,
All this rage and fury.
FIORDILIGI AND DORABELLA:
Desperate, poisoned,
Go to the devil, the whole lot of you!
Later on you'll be sorry,
If my rage grows any greater!
 S H E I L A H O D G E S

DESPINA AND DON ALFONSO:

(aside)
A more amusing little picture
Is not to be seen the world over.
What makes me laugh most
Is all this rage and fury,
For I know full well that this fire (sextet with Fiordiligi and
Could change to the fire of love. Dorabclla, who sing their
FEKRANDO AND GUGLIELMO: four lines)
(aside)
A more amusing little picture

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Is not to be seen the world over.
But I don't know if it's feigned or real,
All this rage and fury.
Nor would I want so much fire
To end up as the fire of love.
With what conviction and poetry, yet with the lightest of touches, always
ready to break into laughter, does this opera express the deepest human
emotions—jealousy, anger, love, passion, remorse! And what a fitting, if not
foreseen, culmination of one of the most inspired artistic collaborations ever
to have existed; for in 1791 Da Ponte was banished from Vienna, not long before
Mozart's brief life came to an end.
On 20 February 1790, when Cost Jim tutte had been seenfivetimes, Emperor
Joseph IL, Da Ponte's faithful protector, died after a long illness. Leopold II,
the new emperor, had his own favorites. Two of them—Irene Tomeoni-
Dutillieu, a prima donna from Naples, and Cecilia Giuliani, who was sum-
moned to Vienna at the command of the new empress—were appointed in
place of Da Ponte's mistress, Adriana del Bene. Although she was admired for
the extraordinary range of her voice, La Ferraresc was a poor actress and
unpopular both with her fellow singers and with the directors of the opera
house. Her contract was coming to an end, and Da Ponte moved heaven and
earth to try to have it renewed. His extreme partisanship made his own posi-
tion at court, without his royal protector, perilously insecure. He therefore
decided to seek employment elsewhere, first considering St. Petersburg, where
his friend Martin y Soler was director of the opera house. However, Leopold
refused to release him from the remainder of his contract, so he asked Mozart
to go to London with him. Mozart, busy with Die Zaubcrfldte, asked for six
months in which to make up his mind; but before this period had expired Da
Pontc had left Vienna and Mozart was too ill to undertake any kind of move.
We have no idea what Mozart's opinion was of hisfinestlibrettist, but in later
years Da Ponte, who in Vienna had regarded Mozart no more highly than he
did Martin y Solcr or Salieri, came to understand the composer's genius. In a
collection of four of his libretti that he brought out in New York in 1826 he
 MOZART AND DA PONTE

wrote, "Since everything depends upon taste, after a while changes come; and
although the prevailing taste is not always the best, nevertheless it robs the
light from that which reigned before, until a new fashion is born which usurps
the throne in its turn. How wonderful it is, then, that with such a succession
of changes the three operas of Mozzart [sic] are almost the only ones which no
modem Composer has been able to supplant: the only ones which, with every
day that passes, are more highly esteemed and valued in every theatre in
Europe: the only ones which can cry out in triumph, WE ARE ETERNAL!"26

NOTES
over, here Mozart's name is spelled correctly,

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All translations arc the author's unless other-
wise indicated. and to his dying day Da Ponte spelled it
1. Emily Anderson, ed. and trans., The Let- "Mozzart-"
ters of Mozart and His Family (London: Mac- 7. Ibid., p. 27.
millan, 1938), pp. 1263—64. 8. Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 344.
2. Alfred Einstein, Mozart, His Character, 9. Ibid., p. 343-
His Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10. Einstein, Mozart, p. 93.
1945), p- +22- n. Da Pontc, Memorie, p. 193.
3. Lorenzo Da Ponte, Memorie (Italy: 12. Anderson, Letters of Mozart, p. 1285.
Garzanti, 1976), p. 96. 13. Ibid, p. 1151.
4. Equally improbable is the theory, first 14. This gift he must have owed pardy to
put forward by the Abbi Maximilian Stadlcr his expertise as an improvisor. Italy was
in the nineteenth century and often repeated famous at thetimeforits improwisatori, per-
since (not least by Einstein), that Da Pontc sons who could improvise songs and verses
wrote the textforMozart's oratorio Davidde on any theme and in any meter, and Da Ponte
Penitente, K. 469, which was given in was particularly adept at the art. In Ccncda,
Vienna in March 1785.1 have been unable to his birthplace, he and his brother Girolamo
find any evidence supporting this attribution had been famous for meir skill, and when he
and can only assume diat there is confusion came to Vienna he was sought out to dem-
with a text entided E Davide that Da Pontc onstrate his mastery.
wrote in 1791forhis mistress, soprano 15. Daniela Goldin, "Da Ponte, Libretrista
Adrians del Bene, who financed five perform- fra Goldoni c Gasti," Giornale Storico della
ances at the Burgtheater in March of that Letteratura Italiana, vol. 158, no. 3 (1981),
year. Though described as an oratorio sacn, it P-399-
is far from being a religious work, Healing as 16. Ibid., pp. 403—4.
it docs with love, jealousy, and revenge. The 17. B burbero di bum cuore, which he had
composer is unknown. As with Lo sposo written with the Spanish composer Martin y
deluso, neither Mozart nor Da Ponte mentions Solcr. This was Da Pome's first triumph at
a collaboration over Davidde Penitente, and the Burgtheater, where it had its premiere on
the text could have been written by any com- 4 January 1786.
petent poet working in Vienna at the time. 18. Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 106. Da Pontc
5. Anderson, Letters of Mozart, p. 1050. writes that when he put the proposition to
6. Lorenzo Da Pontc, Extractfhm the Life the emperor, Joseph replied that Mozart,
ofLorenzo Da Ponte with the History ofSeveral although a marvelous composer of instru-
Dramas Written by Him (New York: J. Gray mental music, had written only one opera
and Company, 1819), pp. 17—18. The shaky and that that wasn't much.
English suggests that this work was probably 19. Da Pome's second great success was
translated from Da Pome's Italian by his son. againforMartin y Soler: the libretto was
Da Pontc preferred to write in Italian; more- based on Guevara's play La luna de la Sierra.
26 SHEILA HODGES

Una cosa ram, which had its premiere at the 1990), p. 212.
Buigtheater on 17 November 1786, was one of 22. Goldin, "Da Ponte," p. 402.
the most popular operas in the theaters of 23. Da Ponte, Extract from the Life, p. 5.
Europe during the last quarter of the eigh- 24. Ibid., p. 19.
teenth century 25. Da Ponte, Memorie, p. 1J4-
20. Da Ponte, Manorie, pp. 104—5. 26. Lorenzo Da Ponte, A Tragedy and
21. \folkmar Braunbchrens, Mozart in Three Musical Dramas (New York: J. Gray
Vienna, 1781-1791 (London: Andre' Dcutsch, and Company, 1826), p. 5.

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