Daniel Catán (1949–2011)

Daniel Catán (1949?2011)

13th Apr 2011

Category: People

Daniel Catán, the Mexican composer of operas including Il Postino and La hija de Rappaccini, died on 10 April at the age of 62. Noted for his neo-Romantic compositional style, Catán was the first composer to be commissioned by major US companies to write Spanish-language opera.

In 1994 Catán became the first Mexican composer to have his opera performed in the US, when La hija de Rappaccini was produced by the San Diego Opera. It was followed two years later by Florencia en el Amazonas, co-commissioned by Houston Grand Opera with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, the Seattle Opera and Ópera de Colombia. Inspired by the works of Gabriel García Márquez, the magic realist opera was praised for its ‘lyric beauty and lush orchestration’ by Opera magazine.

Catán’s most recent opera, Il Postino, won rave reviews in September 2010 when it premiered at the Los Angeles Opera. Based on the 1994 film, it starred Plácido Domingo as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and tenor Charles Castronovo as the eponymous postman who seeks Neruda’s help in matters of love. In Catán’s score, Neruda is portrayed with highly ornamented, imaginative music, while the postman's awkwardness is represented by a rhythmic pattern that develops and matures with his growth. Catán cited Stravinsky, Berg and Ravel as influences, though his music frequently contains hints of Puccini, Strauss, Villa-Lobos and Debussy.

At the time of his death, Catán was in residence at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was working on an adaptation of the 1941 film Meet John Doe. The work had been commissioned by the university’s Butler School of Music.

Catán was a passionate advocate for experimentation and adventurous programming in opera, which formed the basis of his keynote address at the annual Opera America conference in May 2010. The full text of the speech can be found here.