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Alfredo Stroessner
46th President of Paraguay
In office 15 August 1954 – 3 February 1989
Preceded by	Tomás Romero Interim President
Succeeded by	Andrés Rodríguez
Personal details
Born	(1912-11-03)3 November 1912 Encarnación, Paraguay
Died	16 August 2006(2006-08-16) (aged 93) Brasília, Brazil
Nationality	Paraguayan
Political party	Colorado Party
Spouse(s)	Eligia Mora[1]

Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (also Strössner or Strößner; November 3, 1912 – August 16, 2006), was a Paraguayan military officer and dictator from 1954 to 1989. His lengthy rule was the 14th-longest ever by state leaders other than monarchs.

Early life[link]

Stroessner's parents were Hugo Strößner, who emigrated from Hof, Bavaria, Germany, and worked as an accountant for a brewery, and Heriberta Matiauda, who grew up in a wealthy Paraguayan family of criollo Spanish descent. He joined the Paraguayan army in 1929, becoming a lieutenant in 1931. During the Chaco War against Bolivia (1932–1935) he enlisted as an artillery cadet and fought in the Battle of Boquerón. After the war he rose steadily in rank. In the Paraguayan Civil War he commanded the artillery division at Paraguarí that ensured President Moríñigo won by staying loyal and destroying a working-class rebel area of Asunción. He eventually became a brigadier and the youngest general officer in South America in 1948.

Presidency[link]

Stroessner objected to President Federico Chávez' plans to arm the national police and threw him out of office in a coup d'état on May 4, 1954. After a brief interim presidency by Tomás Romero, Stroessner was the only candidate in a special election on July 11 to complete Chávez' term. He was reelected seven times—in 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, and 1988. He appeared alone on the ballot in 1958. In his other elections, he won by implausibly high margins (well over 80 percent in many cases). He served for 35 years, with only Fidel Castro having a longer tenure among 20th century Latin American leaders.

Soon after taking office, Stroessner declared a state of siege and suspended constitutional freedoms. It was renewed every 90 days for the rest of his term, and was only lifted during elections. A devoted anti-communist, he justified this action as a necessary tool to protect the country.

The Stroessner regime enjoyed close military and economic ties with the United States and supported the U.S. invasion of Dominican Republic^[2] and even offered to send troops to support the U.S. in Vietnam.^[3] Strong Paraguayan-U.S. relations continued until the Carter Administration emphasized a foreign policy that recognized human rights abuses. Between 1962 and 1975 the United States provided $146 million to Paraguay's military government and Paraguayan officers were trained at the US Army School of the Americas.^[4] The Reagan Administration boycotted the country as well.^[5] Although the military and security forces under Stroessner received less material support from the United States than other South American countries, strong inter-military connections existed through military advisors and military training. Between 1962 and 1966, nearly 400 Paraguayan military personnel were trained by the United States in the Panama Canal Zone and on US soil.^[6]

As leader of the Colorado Party, Stroessner exercised nearly complete control over the nation's political scene. Although opposition parties were nominally permitted after 1962 (the Colorado Party had been the only legal party in the country since 1947), Paraguay remained for all intents and purposes a one-party state. Elections were so heavily rigged in favor of the Colorados that the opposition had no realistic chance of winning, and opposition figures were subjected to varying degrees of harassment.

While Stroessner's rule saw more stability than any living Paraguayan had ever known, it came at a high cost; corruption was rampant (Stroessner himself did not dispute charges of corruption at some levels in his government) and the Stroessner government's human rights record was considered one of the poorest in South American.^[7] During Stroessner's regime, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 were murdered and 400 to 500 were "disappeared."^[8]

Paraguay was a leading participant in Operation Condor, a campaign of state-terror and security operations which were jointly conducted by the right-wing military governments of six Latin American countries (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil). Human rights violations characteristic of those in other Latin American countries such as kidnapping, torture, forced disappearance and extrajudicial killing, were routine and systematic during the Stroessner regime. Following executions, many of the bodies of those killed by the regime were dumped in the Chaco or the Rio Paraguay. The discovery of the "terror archives" in 1992 in the Lambaré suburb of Asunción, confirmed allegations of widespread human rights violations.

Pastor Coronel was the chief of the pyragüés (hairy-footed in Guaraní) or secret police. He would interview people in a pileta, a bath of human excrement or ram electric cattle prods up their rectums. The Secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone.^[9]

Under Stroessner, egregious human rights violations were committed against the Ache Indian population of Paraguay's east-coast. The Ache Indians resided on land that was coveted by foreign multinationals and had resisted relocation attempts by the Paraguayan army. The government retaliated with massacres and forced many Ache into slavery. In 1974 the UN accused Paraguay of slavery and genocide.^[10]

Stroessner was careful not to show off or draw attention from jealous generals or foreign journalists. He avoided rallies and took simple holidays in Patagonia. He did become more tolerant of opposition as the years passed, but there was no change in the regime's basic character.

During Stroessner's rule, no Communist nations had embassies in Paraguay, with the sole exception of non-aligned Yugoslavia.^[11]

Stroessner made many state visits, including to Emperor Hirohito of Japan, President Lyndon Johnson of the United States, President Charles de Gaulle of France, to South Africa^[12] and several visits to West Germany, although over the years his relations with West Germany deteriorated. Since he had always been known as pro-German, this worsening of relations, combined with his feeling that the U.S. had abandoned him, were regarded as personal blows to Stroessner.

President Stroessner. Stamp Scott no. 1452

It is assumed that the Roman Catholic Church is the only reason Stroessner did not have absolute control over the country.^[13] After the destruction of Asunción University in 1972 by police, the Archbishop of Paraguay Ismael Rolón Silvero excommunicated the minister of the interior and the chief of police, and proscribed the celebration of Holy Mass in a sign of protest against the Stroessner regime. When Pope John Paul II visited Paraguay in 1988, his visit bolstered what was already a robust anti-Stroessner movement within the country.^[14]

Stroessner gave a remarkable television interview in the early 1970s for Alan Whicker as part of a feature on him by the Yorkshire television series Whicker's World. The interview was released as part of a DVD boxset compilation release in the United Kingdom by Network.

Economics[link]

Stroessner was known for several positive economic policies, including the building of the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world in Itaipu Dam, developing Paraguay's economy: although Paraguay received only 15% of the contracts, it was a major factor allowing the country to have the highest rate of growth in Latin America for most of the 1970s.^[15]

Stroessner also dedicated large proportions of the Paraguayan national budget to the military and police apparatus, both fundamental to the maintenance of the regime. According to a 1963 article from Time magazine, Stroessner spent 33% of the 1962 annual budget on army and police, 15% for education, and 2% for public works.^[16] There was no income tax and public spending was the smallest percentage of GDP in Latin America.

Furthermore the construction of the Itaipu Dam, as well as the subsequently built Yacyretá Dam on the Paraguay-Argentina Border, displaced thousands of Paraguayans, pushing them from their homes, often without any restitution.^{[citation needed]} The Itaipu Dam displaced at least 80,000 Paraguayans, and the Yacyretá will have displaced at least that many by December 2008.^{[citation needed]} 160 workers died building the Itaipu Dam.^[17]

Stroessner was also known for many projects that improved the country's infrastructure. Amongst these were the improvement of highways and the issuing of 20 hectare land grants to military personel upon completion of their service, provided that the land would be used for farming purposes.^{[citation needed]} Over 10,000 soldiers took up this offer.^{[citation needed]}

Most impressive was the fact that by the end of the Stronato, the second biggest city was Puerto Flor de Lis (renamed "Puerto Presidente Stroessner," then "Ciudad del Este"), founded just 32 years before.

Downfall[link]

On February 3, 1989, only a few months after being elected to his ninth full term, Stroessner was ousted by a coup d'état led by General Andrés Rodríguez. One reason for the coup was that the generals feared one of Stroessner's offspring would succeed him. Of the two, Freddie was a cocaine addict and Gustavo, a pilot, was loathed for being a homosexual. A more outlandish rumour was that Lino Oviedo threatened Rodríguez with a grenade if he did not launch the coup. The two generals, Rodríguez and Oviedo, fought a brief artillery duel over Asuncion.^[18] After the coup, Stroessner fled to Brazil, where he lived in exile for the next seventeen and a half years.

The eastern city Puerto Flor de Lis, which had been renamed Puerto Presidente Stroessner in his honor, in 1989 was again renamed Ciudad del Este. Asunción's airport had been named after him during his regime, but was later renamed Silvio Pettirossi International Airport.

Paraguayans remain divided on Stroessner and his controversial legacy. Many feel a strong distaste for him, perceiving him as a corrupt, authoritarian dictator. Those who defend his legacy cite the political stability and economic progress under his rule.^{[citation needed]}

Stroessner died on August 16, 2006, in Brasília, at the age of 93. The immediate cause of death was a stroke. He had been suffering from pneumonia after undergoing a hernia operation.^[19] The Paraguayan government preemptively dismissed any suggestions for honoring the late president within Paraguay.^[20] He tried to manage a return to Paraguay before his death, so he could die in his homeland, but he was rebuked and threatened with arrest by the government.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Lewis, Paul H. (1980). Paraguay Under Stroessner. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-1437-7. 
• Miranda, Carlos R. (1990). Stroessner Era: Authoritarian Rule in Paraguay. Boulder: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-0995-6. 

External links[link]

• Obituary at BBC News
• Paraguay's archive of terror
• The Presidential Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower Official letter to President Stroessner (1959)
• Paraguay seeks Stroessner return
• Obituary in The Guardian
• Alfredo Stroessner, 93, Old-Style Military Dictator of Paraguay
• Obituary in The Economist
• New York Times: Stroessner, Paraguay’s Enduring Dictator, Dies
• Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, Colorful Dictator of Paraguay for 35 Years, Dies in Exile at 93

v t e Paraguay topics History Guarani people Governorate of New Andalusia Jesuit Reductions José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia Paraguayan War Chaco War Paraguayan Civil War Alfredo Stroessner Politics Elections Political parties Constitution Human rights (LGBT rights) Foreign relations Military Congress (Chamber of Deputies Senate) Presidents International rankings Geography Environmental issues Fauna Flora National parks Subdivisions (Departments Cities Districts) World Heritage Sites Economy Agriculture Communications Companies Currency Energy Science and technology Stock exchange Transport Demographics Education Health Immigration Languages Religion Notable Paraguayans Indigenous peoples Women Culture Cuisine Cinema Heritage Holidays Internet domain Literature Media Music Sport Symbols National flag Coat of arms National anthem National symbols WikiProject

v t e Heads of state of Paraguay Yegros Rodríguez de Francia Yegros Rodríguez de Francia Ortiz Medina Roque Alonzo C.A. López F.S. López Rivarola Machaín Rivarola Jovellanos Gill Uriarte Bareiro Saguier Caballero Escobar J.G. González M. Morínigo Egusquiza Aceval Carvallo Escurra Gaona Báez Ferreira González Navero Gondra Jara Rojas Peña González Navero Schaerer M. Franco Montero Gondra Eusebio Ayala Eligio Ayala Riart Eligio Ayala Guggiari Eusebio Ayala R. Franco Paiva Estigarribia H. Moríñigo Frutos J.N. González Rolón Molas Chávez Romero Stroessner Rodríguez Wasmosy Cubas González Macchi Duarte Lugo Italics indicate acting, interim or provisional role.

Lorenzo Da Ponte
Engraving by Michele Pekenino after Nathaniel Rogers

Lorenzo Da Ponte (10 March 1749 – 17 August 1838) was a Venetian opera librettist and poet. He wrote the librettos for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.

Early career[link]

Lorenzo Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano in Ceneda, in the Republic of Venice (now Vittorio Veneto, Italy). He was Jewish by birth, the eldest of three sons. In 1764, his father, the widower Geronimo Conegliano, converted himself and his family to Roman Catholicism in order to remarry. Emanuele, as was the custom, took the name of Lorenzo Da Ponte from the Bishop of Ceneda who baptised him. Thanks to the bishop, the three brothers studied at the Ceneda seminary. The bishop died in 1768, after which Lorenzo moved to the seminary at Portogruaro, where he took the Minor Orders in 1770 and became Professor of Literature, and was ordained a priest in 1773. He began at this period writing poetry in Italian and Latin, including an ode to wine, Ditirambo sopra gli odori.^[1]

In 1773 moved to Venice, where he made a living as a teacher of Latin, Italian and French. Although he was a Catholic priest, the young man led a dissolute life, . While priest of the church of San Luca, he took a mistress, with whom he had two children. At his 1779 trial, where he was charged with "public concubinage" and "abduction of a respectable woman", it was alleged that he had been living in a brothel and organizing the entertainments there. He was found guilty and banished for fifteen years from Venice.^[2]

Vienna and London[link]

Lorenzo Da Ponte moved to Gorizia, then part of Austria, where he lived as a writer, attaching himself to the leading noblemen and cultural patrons of the city. In 1781 he believed (falsely) that he had an invitation from his friend Caterino Mazzolà, the poet of the Saxon court, to take up a post at Dresden, only to be disabused when he arrived there. Mazzolà however offered him work at the theatre translating libretti and recommended that he seek to develop writing skills. He also gave him a letter of introduction to the composer Antonio Salieri.^[3]

With the help of Salieri, Da Ponte applied for and obtained the post of librettist to the Italian Theatre in Vienna. Here he also found a patron in Mozart's benefactor, the banker Raimund Wetzlar. As court librettist in Vienna, he collaborated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri, and Vicente Martín y Soler. Early successes were Le nozze di Figaro and Soler's Una cosa rara. Da Ponte wrote the libretti for Mozart's most popular Italian operas, Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790). All of Da Ponte's works were adaptations of pre-existing plots, as was common among librettists of the time, with the exceptions of L'arbore di Diana with Soler, and Così fan tutte, which he began with Salieri, but completed with Mozart. However the quality of his elaboration gave them new life.

In the case of Figaro, Da Ponte included a preface to the libretto which hints at his technique and objectives in libretto writing, as well as his close working with the composer:

[...] I have not made a translation [of Beaumarchais], but rather an imitation, or let us say an extract [...] I was compelled to reduce the sixteen original characters to eleven, two of which can be played by a single actor and to omit , in addition to one whole act, many effective scenes [...] In spite, however, of all the zeal and care on the part of both the composer and myself to be brief, the opera will not be one of the shortest [...] Our excuse will be the variety of development of this drama,[...] to paint faithfully and in in full colour the divers passions that are aroused, and [...] to offer a new type of spectacle [...]^[4]

With the death of Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1792, Da Ponte lost his patron – he had already been formally dimissed from the Imperial Service in 1791, due to intrigues. He received no support from the new Emperor, Leopold. He could not return to Venice, from which he had been banished until the end of 1794. In 1792 Da Ponte travelled via Prague to London, accompanied by his companion Nancy Grahl (with whom he eventually had four children); in 1803 he became librettist at the King's Theatre, London. He remained based in London undertaking various theatrical and publishing activities until 1805, when debt and bankruptcy caused him to flee to the United States in 1805 with Grahl and his children.^[1]

American career[link]

In the United States, Da Ponte settled in New York first, then Sunbury, Pennsylvania, where he briefly ran a grocery store and gave private Italian lessons. He returned to New York to open a bookstore. He became friends with Clement Clarke Moore, and, through him, gained an appointment as the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia College. He was the first Roman Catholic priest to be appointed to the faculty, and he was also the first to have been born a Jew. In New York he introduced opera and produced a performance of Don Giovanni (1825).^[1] He also introduced Gioachino Rossini's music in the U.S., through a concert tour with his niece Giulia Da Ponte.

1n 1807 he began to write his Memoirs (published in 1823), described by Charles Rosen as "not an intimate exploration of his own identity and character, but rather a picaresque adventure story."^[5]

In 1828, at the age of 79, Lorenzo Da Ponte became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1833, at the age of eighty-four, he founded the first opera house in the United States, the New York Opera Company. Owing to his lack of business acumen, however, it lasted only two seasons before the company had to be disbanded and the theater sold to pay the company's debts. It was, however, the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the New York Metropolitan Opera.

Lorenzo Da Ponte died in 1838 in New York; an enormous funeral ceremony was held in New York's old St. Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street. Some sources state that Da Ponte is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens, but that cemetery did not exist before 1848. Other sources say Da Ponte was buried in lower Manhattan. Calvary Cemetery does contain a stone marker to serve as a memorial to Da Ponte.^[6]

In 2009 the Spanish director Carlos Saura released his Italian film Io, Don Giovanni, a somewhat fictionalized account of Da Ponte, which attempted to link his life with his libretto for Don Giovanni.

Da Ponte's libretti[link]

The nature of Da Ponte's contribution to the art of libretto-writing has been much discussed. In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, it is pointed out that "the portrayal of grand passions was not his strength", but that he worked particularly closely with his composers to bring out their strengths, especially where it was a matter of sharp characterization or humorous or satirical passages.^[1] Richard Taruskin notes that Mozart, in letters to his father Leopold, had expressed concern to secure Da Ponte, but was worried that the Italian composers in town (e.g. Salieri) were trying to keep him for themselves. He specifically wished to create a buffa comedy opera which included a seria female part for contrast; Taruskin suggests that "Da Ponte's special gift for was that of forging this virtual smorgasbord of idioms into a vivid dramatic shape."^[7] David Cairns examines Da Ponte's reworking of the scenario for Don Giovanni, (originally written by Giovanni Bertati and performed in Venice as Don Giovanni Tenorio, with music by Gazzaniga), in 1787). Cairns points out that "the verbal borrowings are few", and that Da Ponte is at every point "wittier, more stylish, more concise and more effective." Moreover, Da Ponte's restructuring of the action enables a tighter format giving better opportunities for Mozart's musical structures.^[8] David Conway suggests that Da Ponte's own life 'in disguise' (as a Jew/priest/womaniser) enabled him to infuse the operatic cliche of disguise with a sense of Romantic irony.^[9]

Works[link]

• Opera libretti:
  • La Scuola de' gelosi (1783) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il ricco d'un giorno (1784) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il burbero di buon cuore (1786, from the play by Carlo Goldoni) – composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Il Demogorgone ovvero Il filosofo confuso (1786) – composer Vincenzo Righini
  • Il finto cieco (1786) – composer Giuseppe Gazzaniga
  • Le nozze di Figaro (1786, from the play by Pierre Beaumarchais) – composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Una cosa rara (1786, from the comedy La Luna della Sierra by Luis Vélez de Guevara) – composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Gli equivoci (1786) – composer Stephen Storace
  • L'arbore di Diana (1787) – composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Il dissoluto punito o sia Il Don Giovanni (1787, from the opera by Giuseppe Gazzaniga) – composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Axur, re d'Ormus (1787/88, translation of the libretto Tarare by Pierre Beaumarchais) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Talismano (1788, from Carlo Goldoni) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • Il Bertoldo (1788) – composer Antonio Brunetti
  • L'Ape musicale (1789) – Pasticcio of works by various composers
  • Il Pastor fido (1789, from the pastoral by Giovanni Battista Guarini) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • La Cifra (1789) – composer Antonio Salieri
  • Così fan tutte (1789/90) – composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • La Caffettiera bizzarra (1790) – composer Joseph Weigl
  • La Capricciosa corretta (1795) – composer Vicente Martín y Soler
  • Antigona (1796) – composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Il consiglio imprudente (1796) – composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Merope (1797) – composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Cinna (1798) – composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • Armida (1802) – composer Giuseppe Francesco Bianchi
  • La grotta di Calipso (1803) – composer Peter Winter
  • Il trionfo dell'amor fraterno (1804) – composer Peter Winter
  • Il ratto di Proserpina (1804) – composer Peter Winter
• Cantatas and Oratorios:
  • Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia (1785) – composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri and "Cornetti" (lost)
  • Il Davidde (1791) – Pasticcio from works by various composers
  • Hymn to America – composer Antonio Bagioli
• Poetry:
  • Letter of complaint in blank verse to Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor^[10]
  • 18 sonnets in commemoration of his wife (1832)
• Other
  • translations from English into Italian.
  • several books of elementary instruction in the Italian language
  • Memorie (aurobiography)
  • History of the Florentine Republic and the Medici (2 vols., 1833).^[11]

References[link]

Notes

Sources

• Angermüller, Rudolph, "Da Ponte, Lorenzo", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, London: Macmillan, 1990 ISBN 0333231112
• Cairns, David, Mozart and his Operas. London: Penguin, 2006. ISBN 9780713994919
• Conway, David, Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2012). ISBN 9781107015388
• Da Ponte, Lorenzo, tr. E. Abbott, intr. Charles Rosen, ed. A. Livingstone Memoirs. New York: New York Review of Books, 2000. ISBN 9780940322356
• Einstein, Alfred, tr. A. Mendel and N. Broder, Mozart: His Charcter, His Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1962). ISBN 0195007328
• Holden, Anthony, The Man Who Wrote Mozart: The Extraordinary Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, London: Orion Publishing Company, 2007 ISBN 0-7538-2180-X
• Taruskin, Richard, Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010) ISBN 9780195384826

Other reading

• Bolt, Rodney, The Librettist of Venice: The Remarkable Life of Lorenzo Da Ponte – Mozart's Poet, Casanova's Friend, and Italian Opera's Impresario in America, New York: Bloomsbury, 2006 ISBN 1-59691-118-2
• Hodges, Sheila, Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Life and Times of Mozart's Librettist, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002 ISBN 0-299-17874-9
• Jewish Museum Vienna (pub.), Lorenzo Da Ponte – Challenging the New World, exhibition catalogue from the Jewish Museum ISBN 978-3-7757-1748-9, ISBN 3-7757-1748-X
• Steptoe, Anthony, Mozart–Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and Musical Background to "Le nozze di Figaro", "Don Giovanni", and "Così fan tutte", New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-19-313215-X

External links[link]

• "Nights At The Opera: The Life of the Man who put Words to Mozart" by Joan Acocella, The New Yorker, 8 January 2007
• "The phoenix" by Anthony Holden, The Guardian (London), 7 January 2007
• "Lorenzo's Toil", review of Rodney Bolt's The Librettist of Venice, by Jonathon Keats, The Washington Post, 16 July 2006
•  "Lorenzo Da Ponte". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.