Daniel Cat?n, Composer Of Lyrical Operas, Dead At 62

Elizabeth Beristain/G. Schirmer

Mexican composer Daniel Cat?n's opera Il Postino debuted at the Los Angeles Opera last year, with tenor Placido Domingo.

Composer Daniel Cat?n died suddenly on Saturday, April 9, at age 62 in Austin, Texas according to reports confirmed by his publisher, Associated Music Publishers/G. Schirmer. The cause of death is still to be determined.

A resident of Pasadena, Calif. and the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cat?n was spending the semester teaching at the University of Texas Butler School of Music. He had been scheduled to spend this past weekend in Houston at performances of his opera Il Postino at the University of Houston.

Born in 1949 in Mexico City, Cat?n first studied philosophy and music in England before receiving a doctorate from Princeton University, where his teachers included Milton Babbitt, James K. Randall and Benjamin Boretz. He then returned to his native country to become administrator at Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts. Cat?n later became a U.S. citizen.

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Though he was not exclusively an opera composer, Cat?n found strong champions for his work within the vocal music community, perhaps most notably tenor and impresario Pl?cido Domingo. In 1998, Cat?n won the Pl?cido Domingo Award; Cat?n's 2010 opera Il Postino (based on the novel and film of the same name), premiered at the Los Angeles Opera with Domingo playing Pablo Neruda.

Il Postino had its European premiere at Vienna's Theater an der Wien last December; of that staging, George Loomis wrote in The New York Times, "You can understand why singers like operas composed by Daniel Cat?n. They abound in real melodies ? melodies with musical shapeliness, a capacity to soar and the potential to move the listener."

The composer also found ardent champions at the Houston Grand Opera, which premiered two of his operas, beginning with 1996's Florencia en el Amazonas ? a work co-commissioned by HGO, Los Angeles Opera and Seattle Opera. It was the first Spanish-language opera to be commissioned by major American companies. HGO also commissioned Cat?n's third opera, Salsipuedes, A Tale of Love, War and Anchovies, in 2004 in celebration of the company's 50th anniversary.

At the time of his death, Cat?n was working on a new opera, Meet John Doe, which was scheduled to premiere next year at the University of Texas at Austin, where the chamber version of La Hija de Rappaccini was premiered in February 2011.

He is survived by his wife, Andrea Puente, as well as by three children and four grandchildren.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/04/11/135316948/daniel-cat-n-composer-of-lyrical-operas-dead-at-62?ft=1&f=10003

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