Book Review: "Memoirs" by Lorenzo Da Ponte

Memoirs are an interesting thing. Autobiographies of certain great events in a person's life can really give you an insight into where and how certain ideas developed and, if written well, they can also provide a great story to read for entertainment. In my life I have come across memoirs both great and terrible. I have come across some that I cannot quite put a review on and so, I stayed on the fence and I have come across some that I thought were less a memoir for a person, more an advert of their life to massage their own ego.

Possibly the best autobiography/memoir I have ever read in my life is My Autobiography by Charlie Chaplin. An incredible insight into the world of the entertainer and his humble beginnings. The way he speaks about his mother and his upbringing, the man seriously had a way with words for all the silent he was. Nothing really has ever topped the experience of that autobiography and though Memoirs by Lorenzo Da Ponte is probably in my top twenty, it still doesn't come close to the autobiography of Charlie Chaplin.

If you were like me and grew up meticulously studying the piano, you would know who Lorenzo Da Ponte was. Lorenzo Da Ponte was an opera librettist and in his time, he worked with a great number of human beings including the famed Mozart. He translated Beaumarchais and prepared the work The Marriage of Figaro for Mozart to create an opera from for the stage. His memoirs were very telling of his networking with other people, but most importantly they were also a journey of identity and culture in a time where music, art and love were exploding into life and existence.

One thing I liked about Lorenzo Da Ponte's memoirs is that it doesn't just concentrate on him in the opera. It isn't an advert for himself instead, it takes the reader on a journey of him being a few different people. From being a priest to involved with Giacomo Casanova, he was a gambler and a poet. He had strong political ties, noting that he could not stay in a certain city because of its politics, its philosophies and its strains. When he went travelling it was always as a different person. Above all this though, he was avidly popular amongst people, especially women. When he is coming to the end of his time in one city, he states this:

The effect of this blow on my enemies need not be described. I lingered three weeks in that city. More than a hundred Italians came to visit me, but I received few of them. On the faces of these I could clearly see consternation, envy, displeasure, and, above all, a devouring curiosity to know just how such a metamorphosis had occurred. I amused myself hugely at their expense, telling one thing to one, and another to another, and to no one the truth.

He later leaves for Paris and notices the change in political and philosophical atmosphere, the change of the mannerisms and the culture and yet, his base remains the same - to connect, to influence and to create.

In conclusion, Lorenzo Da Ponte is a man who is constantly recreating himself in society in order to not find his place, but for the place to find him. He wants to stand out and yet, he also wants to be a working part of something bigger than himself (such as Mozart's three operas). He wants a large social circle, but he also appreciates this vast amount of alone time he takes out to write these memoirs. He is a complex human being to say the least.