LA Opera postpones `Il Postino' world premiere

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The Los Angeles Opera has postponed the world premiere of Daniel Catan's "Il Postino." The Spanish-language opera, based on the 1994 movie, was to have starred Placido Domingo. The project, announced in July 2005, had been scheduled to open the 2009-10 season.

Domingo, who's also the company's general director, says it would have been financially irresponsible in the current economic climate to program a world premiere in the same season as the Ring Cycle. Instead, the season will open Sept. 12 with a revival of a 1996 production of Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love."

The company will present the first complete Los Angeles staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle in three full cycles May 29-June 26, 2010.

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