Born Emmanuele Conegliano in Ceneda, Venetian Republic, the man known as Mozart’s librettist began life as a poet, scribbling verse during tedious school lessons. Those teenage experiments, plus a solid grounding in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, primed him for the writing life ahead. When a young Mozart, already famous, requested his assistance, Da Ponte agreed; thus began their illustrious collaboration. Between librettos, Da Ponte lived adventurously, gambling, living in brothels, and writing seditious poetry, for which he was twice tried and convicted. Da Ponte settled in America, selling Italian books and writing a long, lively autobiography.
Triple Silver Yentl (My Elvis) is part of what is known as Kass’s Jewish Warhol series, a feminist comment on Andy Warhol’s famous screen prints of celebrities. Kass used the same mass-production…
Biff:People are worse off than Willy Loman. Believe me. I’ve seen them!
Linda:Then make Charley your father, Biff. You can’t do that, can you? I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never…
An agent of the kahal who is charged with monitoring Jewish cases in the police and in giving gifts to officials is a Jewish middleman.
Jews utilize the art of the middleman not only in trade…