Based on the novel Ardiente paciencia by Antonio Skármeta and the film Il Postino by Michael Radford, the work contains elements of drama and comedy, integrating themes of love and friendship along with political and spiritual conflict.

[2] Set on a small Italian island, exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda receives so much fan mail that a personal postman, Mario Ruoppolo, is hired to deliver his letters.

Mario, smitten by Beatrice Russo, turns to Pablo for help writing poetry that would help him win the heart of the woman he longs for.

In the third act, influenced by Pablo's works, Mario begins writing political poems and while reciting at a communist demonstration, violence breaks out and he receives a gunshot wound, killing him.

[3] Il Postino was commissioned by Los Angeles Opera who co-produced the premiere production with the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

[4] Daniel Catán wrote the role of Pablo Neruda for Plácido Domingo, who sang it at the Los Angeles premiere and in subsequent performances in Vienna and Paris.

His route to creating the work began when he first saw the 1994 film Il Postino and thought it would make a good opera.

In an interview shortly before the premiere Catán said: It's rare that an idea I had 15 years ago resurfaces, then I take it on, because one changes so much in that time.

[8]Discussions with Plácido Domingo who had become the General Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 led to a commission from the company which was announced in 2005.

In the interim, Villazón, who was recovering from surgery on his vocal chords, withdrew from the production and was eventually replaced by Charles Castronovo.

The staging also included projections designed by Philip Bussmann that created a Mediterranean atmosphere and at various points showed old footage of political unrest in Chile and a blackboard with poetry written on it.

[11] The Los Angeles production ran for six performances, ending on 16 October and was filmed for a later broadcast on PBS television.

He also sang the role when the production travelled to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in June 2011 and to Santiago, Chile, in July 2012.

[12] Domingo was to have sung the role in July 2013 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, again in the same production, but was forced to withdraw when he suffered a pulmonary embolism and was replaced by the Spanish tenor Vicente Ombuena.

[7][19] The actor Massimo Troisi, who played the title role in the film and died shortly after it was completed, owned the rights to the screenplay and had willed them to his five siblings.

According to Catán's son, he had almost completely formulated the characterisations of the principal singers before he began the actual composition, and the libretto manuscripts contained relatively few revisions.

Ardiente paciencia is set in Chile during the rise and fall of the Allende Government in the early 1970s with Neruda and his wife Matilde living in their house at Isla Negra, on the Chilean coast.

Although Neruda and Matilde (who were not yet married) did sojourn to Italy during his exile from Chile and stayed on the Isle of Capri on-and-off between 1951 and 1952, they were guests in Edwin Cerio's villa there and did not have their own house.

In the opera, Neruda's act 1 aria "Desnuda" uses the text from "Mañana XXVII" in Cien Sonetos de Amor which was first published in 1959.

[25] In a 2008 essay published in Revista de Musicología, he wrote of his dream to establish a strong tradition of Spanish-language opera, which was still lacking in both Spain and Latin America.

[5] Ronald Blum writing for the Associated Press thought the mismatch was "a bit jarring" but found that the effect dissipated as the opera unfolded.

Discovering that most of the letters are from women, Mario tells Giorgio that he bought one of Pablo's books and wants to have it signed so that he can impress others.

Scene 2: "Tus manos..." Di Cosimo, seeking votes at the next election, promises to bring water to the island.

Excited at the prospect of workers coming to the island and becoming customers, Donna Rosa pledges her support for Di Cosimo.

Scene 4: "Te caíste de la cama" In his next delivery, Mario brings Pablo an audio reel.

Scene 5: "Léamela Padre" Distressed, Donna Rosa runs to the priest and gives him Mario's letter to read.

[27][19][7][5] In his review of the Austrian premiere George Loomis wrote that like Catán's previous operas, the score was marked by a "musical shapeliness" and a "capacity to soar and [...] move the listener."

[7] Anne Midgette wrote in The Washington Post that "the language spoken by Catán's lovely score is universal: the safely melodious terrain of international opera.

"[23] It was a view echoed by Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle who described the opera as a "lovely though limited" work and wrote that "operagoers who complain that they don't write 'em like they used to can take comfort from Il Postino".

[29] Filmed during the premiere run with the original cast in October 2010, this recording was first broadcast in 2011 as part of the PBS television series Great Performances and was released on DVD the following year.