Lorenzo da Ponte - Pennsylvania Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Marker Text:


Mozart's librettist in the 1780s for "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi fan tutte" came to America in 1805 and lived in Sunbury from June 1811 to August 1818. Da Ponte wrote that on visiting Sunbury, the adopted home of his wife's family, "I grew so enamored of the town that I resolved to settle there." A teacher, distiller, and merchant, he lived at the southwest corner of Third and Market Streets.


Born in Italy to a Jewish family, he was converted to Catholicism when his father remarried. His given name was Emmanuele Conegliano but he changed it to daPonte. After the man who converted him. He was studying to take holy orders but his radical views and immoral behaviour led to his banishment from Venice in 1779.

When He relocated to Vienna he was appointed librettist to the New Italian Theatre. His first major success was Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaor" (1786), "Don Giovanni" (1787) and "Cosi fan Tutte (1790). He was banished nine years later, because of scandel again. He moved about Europe and finally settled in London in 1791. He worked as a tutor of Italian, a bookseller and librettist to the Drury Land Theatre until he went bankrupt in 1804. 1805 he went to the United States and failed as a grocer in New Jersey!!!!! He taught over 2,000 private pupils and was appointed professor of Italian language and literature from Columbia College. (now Columbia University) in 1830.

The sign says he lived in Sunbury for 8 years but I found nothing in the article about this period of his life. The only mention was that he had an unhappy marriage.

In 1833 Da Ponte was one of the founders of the Italian Opera House in New York City. During his last years he died a pauper. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, Queens, but that was a cenotaph. (an empty grave - just a monument erected to the dead) He was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Manhattan not far from Old St. Patrick Cathedral and the cemetery was moved to Queens. They didn't pay attention to anyone's name during the reburial, so his true grave site is unknown


So to log your find take A PICTURE OF YOU AND THE SIGN.

Marker Name: Lorenzo da Ponte County: Northumberland Date Dedicated: 10/22/1994 Marker Type: Roadside Location: Cameron Park, 3rd & Market Sts., Sunbury Category: Music & Theater Website: Not listed

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