Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838) was born Emanuele Conegliano, the son of a tanner in a Jewish ghetto near Venice. His father had the family baptized, changing their name to Da Ponte in honor of the local bishop, and enrolled his son in a seminary, where the young Da Ponte soon mastered Latin and the works of the great Italian poets. Da Ponte’s long and exceptionally varied career led him across Europe and, eventually, to New York, where he died some years after opening the city’s first opera house.
