Manuel Garcia, the son, the senior of his sister by three years, survived her the whole span of life allotted to man by the Psalmist. Malibran died in 1836; Garcia in 1906. He achieved nothing on the stage, which he abandoned in 1829. Thereafter his history belongs to that of pedagogy. Till 1848 his field of operations was Paris; afterward, till his death, London. Jenny Lind was one of his pupils; Mme. Marchesi another.
The story that Da Ponte had anything to do with inspiring Garcia's New York enterprise is practically disposed of by the fact that Da Ponte, though intimately associated with the opera in London during his sojourn in that city, had already been a resident of New York three years when Garcia made his début as a singer and never returned thither. Personally Garcia was a stranger to him and he to Garcia when the latter came to New York in the fall of 1825. This gives color of verity to a familiar story of their meeting. As might easily be imagined, the man who had written the librettos of "Le Nozze di Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi Fan Tutte" for Mozart, was not long in visiting Garcia after his arrival here. He introduced himself as the author of "Don Giovanni," and Garcia, clipping the old man in his arm, danced around the room like a child in glee, singing "Fin ch'han dal vino" the while. After that the inclusion of Mozart's masterpiece in Garcia's repertory was a matter of course, with only this embarrassment that there was no singer in the company capable of singing the music of Don Ottavio. This was overcome by Da Ponte going to his pupils for money enough to pay an extra singer for the part. Many a tenor, before and since, who has been cast for that divinely musical milksop has looked longingly at the rôle of Don Giovanni which Mozart gave to a barytone, and some have appropriated it. Garcia was one of these (he had been a tenor de forza in his day), and it fell to him to introduce the character in New York. Outside of himself, his daughter, and the basso Angrisani, the company was a poor affair, the orchestra not much better than that employed at the ordinary theater then (and now, for that matter), and the chorus composed of mechanics drilled to sing words they did not understand. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that at one of the performances of Mozart's opera, of which there were ten, singers and players got at sixes and sevens in the superb finale of the first act, whereupon Garcia, losing his temper, rushed to the footlights sword in hand, stopped the orchestra, and commanded a new beginning.
It has already been told how that Da Ponte was active in the promotion of the first Italian opera enterprise, that he inspired Montressor's experiment at the Richmond Hill Theater and was the moving spirit in the ambitious, beautiful but unhappy Italian Opera House undertaking. To do all these things it was necessary that he should be a man of influence among the cultured and wealthy classes of the community. As a matter of fact he was this, and that in spite of the fact that his career had been checkered in Europe and was not wholly free from financial scandal, at least in New York. The fact is that the poet's artistic temperament was paired with an insatiable commercial instinct. This instinct, at least, may be set down as a racial inheritance. Until seven or eight years ago nobody seems to have taken the trouble to look into the family antecedents of him whom the world will always know as Lorenzo Da Ponte. That was not his name originally. Of this fact something only a little better than a suspicion had been in the minds of those who knew him and wrote about him during his lifetime and shortly after his death. Michael Kelly, the Irish tenor, who knew him in Vienna, speaks of him as "my friend, the abbé," and tells of his dandyish style of dressing, his character as a "consummate coxcomb," his strong lisp and broad Venetian dialect; if he knew that he was a converted Jew, he never mentioned the fact. Later writers hinted at the fact that he had been born a Jew, but had been educated by the Bishop of Ceneda and had adopted his name. When I investigated his American history, a matter of twenty years ago, my statement in The Tribune newspaper that he was the son of a Hebrew leather dealer provoked an almost intemperate denial by a German musical historian, who quoted from his memoirs a story of his religious observances to confound me. My statement, however, was based, not only on an old rumor, but also on the evidence of a pamphlet published in Lisbon in the course of what seems to have been a peculiarly acrimonious controversy between Da Ponte and a theatrical person unnamed, but probably one Francesco. In this pamphlet, which is not only indecorous but indecent, he is referred to as "the celebrated Lorenzo Daponte, who after having been Jew, Christian, priest, and poet in Italy and Germany found himself to be a layman, husband, and ass in London." It remained for Professor Marchesan, his successor in the chair of rhetoric in the University of Treviso, to give the world the facts concerning his origin and early family history. From Marchesan's book ("Della Vita e delle Opere di Lorenzo da Ponte") published in Treviso in 1900 we learn that the poet's father was in truth a Hebrew leather dealer, and also that the father's name was Jeremiah Conegliano, his mother's Rachel Pincherle, and his own Emanuele Conegliano. He was fourteen years old when not he alone, but the whole family, embraced Christianity. They were baptized in the cathedral of Ceneda on August 20, 1763, and the bishop gave the lad, whose talents he seems to have observed, his own name. The rest of his story up to his departure for America may be outlined in the words of the sketch in Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (second edition, Vol. III, p. 789).
After five years of study in the seminary at Ceneda (probably with the priesthood as an object) he went to Venice, where he indulged in amorous escapades which compelled his departure from that city. He went to Treviso and taught rhetoric in the university, incidentally took part in political movements, lampooned an opponent in a sonnet, and was ordered out of the republic. In Dresden, whither he turned his steps, he found no occupation for his talents, and journeyed on to Vienna. There, helped by Salieri, he received from Joseph II the appointment of poet to the imperial theater and Latin secretary. Good fortune brought him in contact with Mozart, who asked him to make an opera book of Beaumarchais's "Mariage de Figaro." The great success of Mozart's opera on this theme led to further co-operation, and it was on Da Ponte's suggestion that "Don Giovanni" was undertaken, the promptings coming largely from the favor enjoyed at the time by Gazzaniga's opera on the same subject, from which Da Ponte made generous drafts—as a comparison of the libretti will show. Having incurred the ill will of Leopold, Da Ponte was compelled to leave Vienna on the death of Joseph II. He went to Trieste, where Leopold was sojourning, in the hope of effecting a reconciliation, but failed; but there he met and married an Englishwoman who was thenceforth fated to share his checkered fortunes. He obtained a letter recommending him to the interest of Marie Antoinette, but while journeying toward Paris learned of the imprisonment of the Queen, and went to London instead. A year was spent in the British metropolis in idleness, and some time in Holland in a futile effort to establish an Italian theater there. Again he turned his face toward London, and this time secured employment as poet to the Italian opera and assistant to the manager, Taylor. He took a part of Domenico Corri's shop to sell Italian books, but soon ended in difficulties, and to escape his creditors fled to America, arriving in New York on June 4, 1805.
Da Ponte lives in the respect and admiration of Dante scholars as the first of American teachers and commentators on "The Divine Comedy." He gave himself the title, and in this case adhered to the truth, which cannot be said of all of his statements about himself. For instance, in a letter to the public to be set forth presently, he calls himself "poet of the Emperor Joseph II." He was in the habit of thus designating himself and it was small wonder that his biographers almost unanimously interpreted these words to mean that he was poet laureate, or Caesarian poet. After the mischief, small enough, except perhaps in an ethical sense, had been done, he tried to correct it in a foot note on one of the pages of his "Memorie," in which he says that he was not "Poeta Cesario," but "poet to the Imperial theaters." In his capacity as a teacher his record seems to have been above reproach; and it was in this capacity that he first presented himself favorably to New Yorkers. Within two years after his arrival he gave a pamphlet to the public entitled "Compendium of the Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, written by Himself, to which is added the first Literary Conversatione held at his home in New York on the 10th day of March, 1807, consisting of several Italian compositions in verse and prose translated into English by his scholars." That this little brochure was designed as an advertisement is obvious enough; it was issued on his fifty-eighth birthday and its contents, besides the sketch of his life, which, so it began, he had promised to give his pupils, were specimens of their literary handicraft. In the biographical recital are echoes of the contentions in which he had been engaged in London a few years before. Although only two years had elapsed since his arrival in America, what may be called the first of his commercial periods was already over. He had sent his wife to New York ahead of him with some of the money which his English creditors were looking for. With this he promptly embarked in business, trafficking in tobacco, liquors, drugs, etc.—goods which promised large profits. In three months fear of yellow fever drove him to Elizabethtown, N. J., where he remained a year, by which time he was ruined. He came back to New York and began to teach the Italian language and literature, and the little "Compendium" recorded his first successes. He taught till 1811, by which time he had laid aside $4,000, with which he again went into business, this time as a distiller in Sunbury, Pa. After several years of commercial life he returned again to New York and resumed the profession which brought him into contact with people of refinement and social standing, who seem to have remained his friends, despite his complaints and importunities, till his death in 1838. Among those who were sincerely attached to him were Clement Clark Moore, Hebrew lexicographer, trustee of Columbia College, and (best of all) author of "'Twas the Night before Christmas." Through Moore he secured the privilege of calling himself Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia, though without salary, managed to sell the college a large number of Italian books, and was engaged to make a catalogue of the college library. Another friend was Henry James Anderson, who became Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the college in 1825, the year in which Garcia came to New York with his operatic enterprise. Professor Anderson married his daughter and became the father of Edward Henry and Elbert Ellery Anderson. Other friends were Giulian C. Verplanck, Dr. Macneven, Maroncelli, the Italian patriot, (whose wife was one of the members of the opera company which Da Ponte organized with Rivafinoli), Samuel Ward, Dr. John W. Francis, the Cottenet family, and H. T. Tuckerman, who wrote a sketch of him after his death in Putnam's Magazine. At the time of his operatic venture, 1833-34, he lived at No. 342 Broadway, and kept a bookstore at No. 336, which may then have been an adjoining house. The site is near the present Catherine Lane. Before then he had lived in dozens of different houses, moving, apparently, nearly every year. He died at No. 91 Spring Street, on August 17, 1838, and was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Eleventh Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A. When the centenary of the first performance of "Don Giovanni" was celebrated in many European cities, in 1887, I conceived the idea of sending a choir of trombones to the grave of the poet who had written the text to pay a musical tribute to his memory, and thus made the discovery that the place of his burial was as completely lost as the last resting place of the mortal remains of Mozart. Weeks of research were necessary to determine the fact that it was the old cemetery that had received his body, and that the location of the grave was no longer to be determined by the records. It was never marked.
Da Ponte's ambition to see Italian opera permanently established in New York seems to have received a crushing blow with the failure of the pretentious Italian Opera House enterprise. His dream I have referred to; he was again to be a "poet to the opera," to write works for season after season which his countryman Trajetta was to set to music. His niece was to be a prima donna. He did write one libretto; it was for an opera entitled, "L'Ape Musicale," for the musical setting of which he despoiled Rossini. His niece, Giulia Da Ponte, did sing, but her talents were not of the kind to win distinction. He persuaded Montressor to give his season, and, rushing into print, as was his custom—the period of the pamphleteer was to his liking—he discussed the failure of that undertaking in two booklets. After the successive failures of himself with Rivafinoli and his underlings, who attempted to succeed where he had come to grief, he appended a letter to his old supporters (who had plainly fallen away from him) to a pamphlet devoted to setting forth the miseries of his existence after the great things which, in his opinion, he had done for the people of New York. The letter has never seen the light of day from the time when it was printed in 1835 till now; but it deserves preservation. I found it twenty years ago in the library of the Historical Society of New York in a bound volume of miscellaneous pamphlets. It is as follows:
TO THOSE AMERICANS who love the fine arts I address myself. Hitherto I have vainly spoken and written. Never was more really verified the Latin proverb: Abyssus abyssum invocat.
Let the verses that I now present you rouse you from your lethargy; yet should they not, I will not cease to cry aloud. I cannot now remain in silence while my fellow countrymen are sacrificed, the citizens of two noble cities deceived, and an enterprise for which I have so long and ardently labored, so calculated to shed luster on the nation, and so honorable in its commencement, ruined by those who have no means, nor knowledge, nor experience. Answer at least these questions: Did you not request from me an Italian company? It will be readily understood with whom I speak. Why did you ask this of me? I was offered a handsome premium if I would introduce a troupe of select Italian artists in America. Did not I, and I alone procure them? Were they not excellent? Have I been compensated for my labor, reimbursed my actual expenses, or even honored by those most benefited by my losses and labors?
Had not I a right to expect thus much, or at least justice? And if you thought me competent to do what I have done, why should you not be guided by my counsels? Did I not tell you and reiterate in my writing and verbally that Rivafinoli was not to be trusted? That he was a daring, but imprudently daring, adventurer, whose failures in London, and in Mecico and Carolina were the sure forerunners of his failure in New York? And when deceived by him, whom did you take in place of him? PORTO! SACCHI! With what means? What talents? What judgment? What experience? What chances of a happy issue? Would you know why they wished it? I will tell you, with Juvenal—'Greculus esuriens si in coelum jusseris ibit.' But ignorant pretenders mostly have more influence than modest truth. You, gentlemen of the committee, gave the theater to them because, not having anything to lose, they could yield to everything, even to the promising of what they knew themselves unable to perform.
One of them it is said still has some hopes from you. Before another disgrace occurs I beg you to look at the effects. Nemo dat quod non habet. I brought a company from Italy by the mere force of my word. And why was this? Because they knew me for an honorable man, who would not promise what he could not perform, who had been eleven years the poet of the Emperor Joseph 2d, who for another equal space of time had been the poet to the theater in London, who had written thirty-six operas for Salieri, for Martini, for Storace and Mozzart (sic).