The opera Il Postino (The Postman), which premiered in 2010, is based on a novel of 1985 that was made into a film in 1994. It’s about an Italian postman who befriends the exiled Cuban poet Pablo Neruda, and also about politics and the poetry of life. Catán’s music is traditionally melodious and soaring—no postmodernism here—and has proved popular with audiences. —L.J.