In 1805: Da Ponte leaves for New York to... escape his London creditors.
In fact he goes to America to try to start again, with his wife and children already gone to the New Continent, a life that is now impossible to pursue in Vienna, where he has been involved in many daring affairs. He tried to make a living in the tobacco and alcohol trade, grocery store and bookstore before becoming a professor of Italian language and literature at Columbia College in New York. It was also in the United States that Da Ponte wrote his Memoirs, which were published in four volumes.
In New York, on May 23, 1826, Da Ponte performed Don Giovanni and it was a triumph. Thus, as early as 1826, and thanks to Da Ponte, Mozart entered the American stages. In 1833, he raised funds for the creation of an Italian opera in New York and brought in Pietro Maroncelli but it was a failure.
He died in New York in 1838 and was given an imposing funeral in Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street.
Man of letters and adventurer, friend of Casanova, he was also the introducer and propagator of the Italian language, literature and opera in America.
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