Il Postino: Mario, sittin' on the dock of the bay

Daniel Catán

Virginia Opera's season began, you'll recall, with a production of a classic: Puccini's Tosca. This opera opened with, in place of a prelude, five fortissimo chords in the full orchestra; they were powerful, dramatic, and more than a little ominous. As the action played out, we came to realize they were characterizing not only the villainous nature of Baron Scarpia, but the tyrannical Bourbon monarchy of which he was an agent.

In addition to identifying Scarpia, that sequence of chords also foretold the overall character of the opera itself: dramatic, intense, violent, passionate.

In the same fashion, the opening music of Act 1 of Daniel Catán's Il Postino also provides a wealth of information about the drama to come, in just thirty-odd seconds of orchestral scene-setting music:

(You can hear about half of the introduction as the opening 17 seconds of the Postino montage at this link.)

This music actually tells us three important things about the opera to come:

1. In the mild harmony and spare texture of the music, we can infer what life is like on Calla di Soto, the island off the coast of Italy on which the story takes place. We will soon discover that the only "industry" on the island is fishing, but we can already tell that the pace of life there is serene, tranquil, and simple. No traffic jams, no high-powered corporate businessmen, - just life on the water.
2. The music also describes the character of the central character Mario Ruoppolo. Now the music strikes us as dreamy (in fact, Mario will express the dream - however unrealistic - of moving to America some day). He is unemployed (fishing makes him seasick), largely uneducated, and sorely lacking in self-esteem.  As we meet him in Act 1, he might have sung along with Otis Redding:
   Sittin' on the dock of the bay,
   Watchin' the tide roll away;
   Sittin' on the dock of the bay,
   Wastin' time...
   Above all, however, Mario is a gentle soul. In his growing wonder at the discovery of poetic language; in his soft-spoken pursuit of the woman he loves, even in his moments of despair, his essential nature is that of a gentle soul.
3. And that word "gentle" is key to the entire opera! There is a gentleness and wistfulness to the opening orchestral music that serves to characterize all of Il Postino. There will be no murders, suicides, plunging daggars, screams of agony or other remnants of Tosca here. It's a coming-of-age story tinged with hopes, dreams, disappointments and bittersweet romance. 

In fact, the final adjective in the final phrase of the libretto is "gentle".

Two climactic scenes demonstrate the fulfillment of the promise of the introductory music. In Act 3, Mario, having won the love of the barmaid Beatrice (in the course of three gentle, lyrical love duets), is dealt a crushing disappointment. Pablo Neruda, the man Mario came to regard as friend, mentor and father-figure during the weeks when he delivered mail to the poet, has written him from Chile. Expecting a warmly personal message, Mario is devastated when it proves to be merely an impersonal announcement from Neruda's secretary. Mario reacts with restrained, resigned sadness:
Admit it… Why should he remember me? As a poet, I’m not much good… As a postman? As a Communist? Not even that. It’s quite normal. Tomorrow we’ll send the rest of his things off.

A moment like this is a challenge for an operatic composer. To set these words properly requires the skill of writing music that allows the listener to feel Mario's pain as acutely as he does. Catán rises to this challenge with a finely-wrought expression that, however sorrowful, retains the character's implicit gentleness. Note especially the passage beginning at 2:20 in this video.

"Gentle" is also the best word to describe the closing scene of the opera. Neruda, returning to the island years after the period of his exile there, learns of Mario's untimely death. It becomes clear that the impersonal cruelty of the letter from Chile was, ironically, a blessing to the young ex-postman. Stripped of his idealized image of Pablo Neruda, Mario is forced to stop clinging to the poet's metaphorical coattails. Fairly worshiping Neruda, Mario arrested his own development in relying on the writer's words rather than finding his own voice (His courtship of Beatrice using images from Neruda's love poems places Il Postino squarely in the tradition of stories like Cyrano de Bergerac and the film recently awarded Best Picture at the Academy Awards, The Green Book.)

With the direct influence of Neruda no longer guiding him, Mario was forced to grow up; to live his own life; in short, to find his own voice. Beatrice recounts his awakening to corruption in local government (represented by the sleazy pol Di Cosimo) and his ensuing political activisim, culminating in his losing his life at a public demonstration.

In the final moments of the work, Neruda reads from a letter Mario left for him, a letter in which he shyly writes that, at last, he has written a poem:
I’ve been asked to read it in public. It’s about the sea, the sea you taught me to love, the sea of Italy. It’s dedicated to you, Don Pablo, from your friend Mario. It’s a song. Don Pablo, if you hadn’t come into my life, I would never have written it. It’s for you. And if my voice trembles, it’s the sea’s gentle tears.

This link will take you to a video of Mario's farewell. With the limitation of keyboard accompaniment in place of Catán's luminous orchestration, note how the affect of that opening orchestral introductory music returns. Now, in the context of all that has happened, we understand at last that in addition to serenity, simplicity and gentleness, this music was always tinged with melancholy as well.

Also note the final adjective in the quoted text. The opera ends as it began, having taken Mario and you and I on a journey of discovery: of poetic language, of romance and personal growth.

Is it a sad ending? By no means. I can think of nothing sadder than going through life with no self-esteem, no goals, no meaning to one's time on earth - no voice. Though Mario did not live to see the birth of his son, he packed a lot into his shortened life: he discovered the power of language; he wooed and won the love of his life; he found meaning in activism. He found his destiny.

The photo of Daniel Catán is by By PaulWie1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48774776