A Love too Far
Kaija Saariaho: L’Amour de Loin, Met encore in HD, Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford, 13 December 2016.
L’Amour de Loin was written in Paris in 1999 by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho to a libretto by the Lebanese-French author Amin Maalouf after a long period of gestation, for a first performance at the Salzburg Festival in 2000. Surprisingly, it was completely unknown to me before the Met’s production was announced, although it has been widely staged around the world, including by English National Opera in 2009. Many of the early productions were by Peter Sellars but The Met has a magical new production by Robert Lepage. Musically it has a voice of its own, in the French tradition, somewhere between Debussy and Messiaen.
The story which inspired the collaboration between composer and librettist is a twelfth century troubadour song La vida breve by Jaufré Rudel, Prince of Blaye. It tells of the poet yearning for a distant love he despairs of ever finding. A Pilgrim assures him such a woman does exist in Tripoli and he sets out to find her. After an arduous sea crossing they are united but he dies in her arms.
This plot is a strong reminder of Harrison Birtwistle’s The second Mrs Kong a Glyndebourne sensation in 1985. Here King Kong falls in love with an image of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and they set out to overcome obstacles to find each other. Here the tragedy is not death but that when they meet they find they have nothing to say to each other. This is a much more poignant ending to a truly great opera.
In L’Amour de Loin, there are just the three characters, Jaufré Rudel and Clémence interacting through the mediation of the Pilgrim. In this production, they are sung respectively by Eric Owens, Susanna Phillips and Tamara Mumford. All three give powerful performances. The setting is magical. The stage is covered with blue with a myriad of twinkling lights, representing sun-lit ripples on a calm sea. Above hover gantries for each of the lovers with the Pilgrim paddling a canoe between them. Occasionally breaking the surface is a small chorus commenting on the action. There are five Acts with an intermission between III and IV. In the first half, the Pilgrim travels between Aquitaine and Tripoli introducing the lovers. In the second half, Jaufré arrives in Tripoli desperately ill. He dies in Clémence’s arms as the sea turns red.
During the performance, we were totally entranced by the beauty of the music and the spectacle of this ingenious production. Sad to say, the illusion did not long survive the fall of the curtain. Unusual and engrossing though the opera may seem at the time, in retrospect it contains little of any depth. Unlike Harrison Birtwistle.
The story which inspired the collaboration between composer and librettist is a twelfth century troubadour song La vida breve by Jaufré Rudel, Prince of Blaye. It tells of the poet yearning for a distant love he despairs of ever finding. A Pilgrim assures him such a woman does exist in Tripoli and he sets out to find her. After an arduous sea crossing they are united but he dies in her arms.
This plot is a strong reminder of Harrison Birtwistle’s The second Mrs Kong a Glyndebourne sensation in 1985. Here King Kong falls in love with an image of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and they set out to overcome obstacles to find each other. Here the tragedy is not death but that when they meet they find they have nothing to say to each other. This is a much more poignant ending to a truly great opera.
In L’Amour de Loin, there are just the three characters, Jaufré Rudel and Clémence interacting through the mediation of the Pilgrim. In this production, they are sung respectively by Eric Owens, Susanna Phillips and Tamara Mumford. All three give powerful performances. The setting is magical. The stage is covered with blue with a myriad of twinkling lights, representing sun-lit ripples on a calm sea. Above hover gantries for each of the lovers with the Pilgrim paddling a canoe between them. Occasionally breaking the surface is a small chorus commenting on the action. There are five Acts with an intermission between III and IV. In the first half, the Pilgrim travels between Aquitaine and Tripoli introducing the lovers. In the second half, Jaufré arrives in Tripoli desperately ill. He dies in Clémence’s arms as the sea turns red.
During the performance, we were totally entranced by the beauty of the music and the spectacle of this ingenious production. Sad to say, the illusion did not long survive the fall of the curtain. Unusual and engrossing though the opera may seem at the time, in retrospect it contains little of any depth. Unlike Harrison Birtwistle.