Il Postino is an opera in three acts by Daniel Catán with a Spanish libretto by the composer. Based on the novel Ardiente paciencia by Antonio Skármeta and the film Il Postino by Michael Radford, the work contains elements of drama and comedy, integrating themes of love and friendship along with political and spiritual conflict. The opera premiered at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by Los Angeles Opera on 23 September 2010.
Set on a small Italian island, exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda receives so much fan mail that a personal postman, Mario Ruoppolo, is hired to deliver his letters. Smitten by Beatrice Russo, a local barmaid, Mario turns to Pablo for help writing poetry that would help him win the heart of the woman he longs for. Soon after, Mario and Beatrice fall in love and marry. In the third act, influenced by Pablo's works, Mario begins writing political poems and while reciting at a communist demonstration, violence breaks out and he receives a fatal gunshot wound.
Il Postino was commissioned by Los Angeles Opera who co-produced the premiere production with the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Daniel Catán wrote the role of Pablo Neruda for Plácido Domingo, who sang it at the Los Angeles premiere and in subsequent performances in Vienna and Paris.Swed, Mark (24 September 2010). "Opera review: L.A. Opera premieres 'Il Postino'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 October 2016.Olivier, Ellen (21 June 2011). "Dispatch From Paris: 'Il Postino' opens with Placido Domingo and memories of Daniel Catan". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 October 2016.Loomis, George (15 December 2010). "Pablo Neruda and His Mailman, This Time Sung". The International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
Background and performance history Il Postino was the fifth and last of Daniel Catán's operas and the first one for which he had also written the libretto. His route to creating the work began when he first saw the 1994 film Il Postino and thought it would make a good opera. However, at the time, he was in the midst of composing Florencia en el Amazonas and then received a commission from Houston Grand Opera for his fourth opera Salsipuedes which premiered in 2004. After completing that work, he returned to the Postino project. In an interview shortly before the premiere Catán said: It's rare that an idea I had 15 years ago resurfaces, then I take it on, because one changes so much in that time. But when I came back to this idea, in fact I was still interested in it, but for different reasons. Instead of identifying with the Mario character, with the young aspiring poet, in fact now I could see the story from the other point of view, which was of the older poet.Mangan, Timothy (21 September 2010). "'Il Postino' becomes an opera". Orange County Register. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
Discussions with Plácido Domingo who had become the General Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 led to a commission from the company which was announced in 2005. The premiere was to have taken place in the 2009 season starring Domingo as the poet Neruda and Rolando Villazón as Mario. However, financial difficulties at Los Angeles Opera caused the postponement of the premiere until the following season. In the interim, Villazón, who was recovering from surgery on his vocal chords, withdrew from the production and was eventually replaced by Charles Castronovo.Pasles, Chris (23 July 2005). "'Il Postino' opera is in the works". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 October 2016.Nunez, Erika (16 January 2009). "LA Opera postpones 'Il Postino' world premiere". Dallas Morning News. Associated Press. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
The opera finally premiered on 23 September 2010 as the opening production of the 2010 season. It was conducted by Grant Gershon and directed by Ron Daniels with sets and costumes designed by Riccardo Hernandez. The staging also included projections designed by Philip Bussmann that created a Mediterranean atmosphere and at various points showed old footage of political unrest in Chile and a blackboard with poetry written on it. Following the premiere, the Chilean government conferred the on Daniel Catán, Antonio Skármeta, Plácido Domingo and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs who sang the role of Neruda's wife Matilde.Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, Gobierno de Chile (24 September 2010). "En estreno mundial de Il Postino: Ministro de Cultura entregó Orden al Mérito Pablo Neruda". Retrieved 9 October 2016 .
The Los Angeles production ran for six performances, ending on 16 October and was filmed for a later broadcast on PBS television. The following December the production went to Vienna's Theater an der Wien with largely the same cast, including Domingo as Neruda. He also sang the role when the production travelled to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in June 2011 and to Santiago, Chile, in July 2012.Boehm, Mike (16 July 2012). "Placido Domingo wins raves as 'Il Postino' goes home to Chile". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 October 2016. Domingo was to have sung the role in July 2013 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, again in the same production, but was forced to withdraw when he suffered a pulmonary embolism and was replaced by the Spanish tenor Vicente Ombuena.Irurzun, José María (July 2013), "Madrid Opera Closes Season with Catán's Il Postino". Seen and Heard International. Retrieved 6 October 2016. Ombuena also sang the role of Neruda when the production travelled to Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes for the opera's Mexico premiere in October 2011.Figueroa, Fernando (13 October 2011). "Estrenan 'Il Postino' en Bellas Artes". El Universal. Retrieved 6 October 2016 .
Il Postino had its US East Coast premiere in a separate production at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia in May 2012, performed by Center City Opera Theater, a chamber opera company. On that occasion the orchestral scoring was reduced to 21 players.Stearns, David Patrick (19 May 2012). "Review: Center City Opera's fine Il Postino". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 6 October 2016. The opera was also given a new production in July 2016 performed by Opera Saratoga in Saratoga Springs, New York.Freedman, Geraldine (9 July 2016). "Terrific cast, clever set elevate Il Postino". The Daily Gazette. Retrieved 6 October 2016. Student performances have included the University of Houston's Moores School of Music in 2011 and the Mannes School of Music in 2014 (the opera's New York City premiere).Boehm, Mike (25 March 2011). "Domingo not done with 'Il Postino,' but Texans have composer's OK to jump in". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 October 2016.The New Yorker (May 2014). "Mannes Opera: Il Postino". Retrieved 6 October 2016.
Libretto
In writing the libretto, Catán followed the plot of the Michael Radford's Italian film Il Postino (and its attendant anachronisms) quite faithfully, but he also used Antonio Skármeta's 1985 novel Ardiente paciencia (on which the film had been based) to develop the characterization of Pablo Neruda.Blum, Ronald (24 September 2010). "Daniel Catan's `Il Postino' opens with Domingo". The Boston Globe via Associated Press. Retrieved 6 October 2016. The actor Massimo Troisi, who played the title role in the film and died shortly after it was completed, owned the rights to the screenplay and had willed them to his five siblings. Once Catán had decided on the Postino project, he visited each of them personally to secure the adaptation rights rather than relying on lawyers. According to Catán's son, he had almost completely formulated the characterisations of the principal singers before he began the actual composition, and the libretto manuscripts contained relatively few revisions.Stearns, David Patrick (17 April 2011). "Daniel Catán obituary ". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
The entirely fictional story of Neruda and his postman is told in both the film and Skármeta's novel. However, there are several key differences between the novel and both the film and the opera. Ardiente paciencia is set in Chile during the rise and fall of the Allende Government in the early 1970s with Neruda and his wife Matilde living in their house at Isla Negra, on the Chilean coast. The film and opera move the locale from Chile to a fictional Italian island and the time to the early 1950s. Although Neruda and Matilde (who were not yet married) did sojourn to Italy during his exile from Chile and stayed on the Isle of Capri on-and-off between 1951 and 1952, they were guests in Edwin Cerio's villa there and did not have their own house. At that time Neruda had not yet achieved the world-wide fame as a poet that he had by the early 1970s when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature."Neruda". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Retrieved 6 October 2016. The poems quoted in both the film and the opera were written several years after he returned to Chile. In the opera, Neruda's act 1 aria "Desnuda" uses the text from "Mañana XXVII" in Cien Sonetos de Amor which was first published in 1959.Hodgson, Irene B. (2002). "The De-Chileanization of Neruda in Il Postino" in Teresa Longo (ed.). Pablo Neruda and the U.S. Culture Industry, pp. 97–113. Psychology Press. Midgette, Anne (25 September 2010). "Domingo's tenor lifts respectable, but too literal, Il Postino by Daniel Catán". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 October 2016.Wilson, Jason (2014), A Companion to Pablo Neruda: Evaluating Neruda's Poetry, pp. 227–228 (reprint of 2008 edition). Boydell & Brewer.
Like all of Catán's previous operas, the libretto was in Spanish. In a 2008 essay published in Revista de Musicología, he wrote of his dream to establish a strong tradition of Spanish-language opera, which was still lacking in both Spain and Latin America. At the time, he was working on the libretto for Il Postino and wrote: Is it not ironic, for example, that it has been the Italian cinema that rescued Neruda with Il Postino? I will now take back Il Postino. I will make it into an opera and will restore our language to it. Why rescue when we can create?Catán, Daniel (June 2008). "Ópera en español. Revista de Musicología. Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 249–254. Sociedad Española de Musicología. . The language choice drew a mixed reaction from the critics. The Los Angeles Times critic found it "peculiar" given the Italian setting. Ronald Blum writing for the Associated Press thought the mismatch was "a bit jarring" but found that the effect dissipated as the opera unfolded. The critic for the British magazine Opera wrote "The only real problem is that Catán, for some inexplicable reason, keeps the story set in Italy-despite writing the opera in Spanish. [...] Likewise, Skármeta's novel is set not in Italy but on an island off the coast of Chile. Where was the dramaturge during all of this?"Taylor, James C. (2010). "Review: Il Postino, Los Angeles". Opera. Retrieved 10 October 2016.
Roles +RoleVoice typePremiere cast, 23 September 2010Conductor: Grant GershonMario Ruoppolo, postman on a small Italian islandtenorCharles CastronovoPablo Neruda, poet living in exile on the islandtenorPlácido DomingoBeatrice Russo, a barmaid beloved by MariosopranoAmanda SquitieriMatilde Neruda, Pablo's wifesopranoCristina Gallardo-DomâsGiorgio, the island's postmasterbass-baritoneVladimir ChernovDonna Rosa, Beatrice's auntmezzo-sopranoNancy Fabiola HerreraDi Cosimo, a local politicianbaritoneJosé Adán PérezMario's FathertenorGabriel OsunaPriesttenorChristopher Gillett
Synopsis Setting: The fictional Italian island of Cala di Sotto during the 1950sSynopsis based on Large, Brian (2012). Liner Notes, Il Postino DVD. Sony Classical
Act 1
Prelude Di Cosimo, a politician running for office on the island, sings a nationalist song. Soon after, an announcement is made on the radio stating that Pablo Neruda, a great Chilean poet, has arrived in Rome. Exiled, he will live on the island of Cala di Sotto.
Scene 1: "No papá, no hay agua"