A fabulous book about the life of this wonderful librettist is by Rodney Bolt called The Librettist of Venice. Bolt follows the life of Da Ponte, which is a better story than any of the operas that he ever worked on in his life. As a young boy he entered the seminary and became a priest, but was known as a great lover. Through his life he adventured all over Europe and eventually he settled in New York and he brought opera to America for the first time. As a professor of literature at Columbia University he was the first Jewish born instructor, as well as the first ordained priest. Bolt gives us all the details of this wonderful life! You can get your copy from Amusements, Seattle Opera's gift shop here: Amusements
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I'd also like to recommend Da Ponte's MEMOIRS, which reminds me of that wild tall tale "My Life" by Richard Wagner. The biographers have cleaned up some of Da Ponte's more self-serving leaps of memory, but his own story of his life is extremely entertaining.
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