Il Postino, Virginia Opera 2019
The opera adaptation of Il Postino by the brilliant Daniel Catán is a beautiful mixture of the novel by Antonio Skármeta and the 1994 film directed by Michael Radford. Like the film, the action is moved from the novel’s Chilean setting towards the end of Neruda’s life in 1969 to the fictitious Italian island of Cala di Sotto (literally “Cove Below”) in 1950 during poet Pablo Neruda’s political exile from Chile. This more innocent and distant representation of post-Mussolini and post-war Italian life replaces Neruda’s true residence in exile, Capri. The aesthetic of this production focuses on the citizens of the island as living in a time before the war, while the Chilean Neruda, in all his success and wealth, portends a new era as he sports new suits and sits on chic furniture. The iconic sound of Mario’s bike bell, the fishermen who make up the residents of the island, and the oceanside setting evoke at once movement, beauty, and the unknown.
Mario, the postman, is in search of poetry. His only client is the famous Neruda, who he turns to for guidance in finding love with the beautiful Beatrice. She is a fiery bird who does not love easily. The three mysterious women who pepper the scenes are representative of the emotional awakening of female desire. This story is not Mario’s alone. Beatrice has an equal journey, but hers is not inspired directly by Neruda. She beholds Mario in the wake of his poetic transformation. The three women embody the aesthetic of Neruda’s passion for music that is woven into various scenes of the opera, such as tango, and therefore awaken Beatrice to Mario’s newfound confidence and sensitivity to nature, thanks to Neruda’s foreign influence.
The political implications of the island are very clear and familiar, and Cala di Sotto is used as a microcosm of upheaval in mid-century Europe. Like most political disputes, this one is deeply immersed in class structure. Mario and Beatrice come from the lower, working class seeking refuge in the dream of equality as promised by communism. Neruda is of the artist-political activist class who has achieved wealth through his success, while remembering his working class roots. The candidate di Cosimo is a wealthy democratic politician who will do whatever it takes to win an election. Neruda has his own political concerns back home in Chile. Mario and Neruda’s friendship emerges despite political chaos. The two find harmony in metaphor, which serves as an escape. And yet Mario, like the politics that have abandoned him, is abandoned by Neruda. Mario’s breakdown in Act III over Pablo’s lack of communication after his departure comes out of a realization of the class he belongs to: “What did I ever do for him?...He saw that I wasn’t a poet, and yet he treated me like a friend.”
In this production our team has worked toward achieving a sense of flow to at once express the various locations for action and the discovery of poetry. The staircase, a metaphorical wave made up of floor and roof tile finishing off with paper, is triggered with Mario’s human impetus (the bicycle) to move forward in life. Sometimes, like the ocean, it moves unexpectedly on its own as a harbinger of fate. The opera, which highlights very profoundly Neruda’s South American roots, expresses moments of heightened epiphany and beauty. This production embraces those moments as an opportunity for magical realism, as created by the novelist and friend of Neruda’s, Gabriel García Márquez. These moments express “another world,” raising the characters above the everyday. Catán’s portrayal of Neruda’s nostalgia for his homeland—the Spanish language, the fight for political change, Argentine tango—permeate the story you are about to witness. Poetry is found, tango is danced and embodied, and the real Neruda’s inspired presence washes over us like a wave.
y cambió bruscamente mi existencia: / and my life changed suddenly:
de mi adhesión al puro movimiento. / as I became part of its pure movement.
USA, 2019