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From: ray Category: Art Date: 23 April 2007 Time: 11:22 AM Review: Da Ponte is a rascal. He was Mozart's Librettist, a few times, and Casnova's mate . He was of Jewish origins (the edition I had first published in the 20s is full of anti-semitic footnotes), nearly became a priest, was involved in numerous disputes, landed up in New York, hobnobbed with notables of the city, and generally seemed of prodigious powers to extemporize latin odes and make enemies. His memoirs are a bit dull in places, but the picaresque and the getrichschemes and the self-aggrandizement, and the sheer breadth of his career keep you reading.