Daniel Catán (b.1949): Rappaccini’s Daughter • Obsidian Butterfly
Music and Poetry

I was convinced, from the very first reading, that La hija de Rappaccini, by Octavio Paz, would make a beautiful opera. The experience of love, fleeting, fragile and unending, in which life and death intertwine to exchange their secrets; the only moment where Time stops and human beings are allowed a taste of immortality: this, for me, is the heart of Paz’s work and the thing that irresistibly attracted me to it. I soon recognised, furthermore, that his poetic idea was nothing less than the very essence of music. Hearing is the most intimate of the senses and musical forms those that come closest to the nature of desire.

I have inherited a very rich operatic tradition. In my work, I am proud to say, one can detect the enormous debt I owe to composers from Monteverdi to Alban Berg. But, perhaps, the greatest of my debts is having le