Da Ponte was recommended by Metastasio for his position with the Italian Opera in Vienna. Mozart and he collaborated on three operas in four years, supreme examples of the art; they communicated by shouting from house to house when living in the same Prague street. Da Ponte also worked as librettist for Martin y Soler, Salieri and Paisiello. Casanova advised him on fleeing Vienna to go to London; Longfellow, Irving and Cooper were all acquaintances after he fled London for New York, Moore’s father getting him a professorship in Italian. Morse, perhaps introduced by Cooper, painted the old man’s portrait.