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L’amour de loin
(Love from Afar)
Opera in five acts
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Composer |
Kaija Saariaho |
|
Libretto |
Amin Maalouf |
|
Venue and Dates |
Barbican Hall,
London |
|
Conductor |
Robert Spano |
|
Director |
|
|
Performers |
Jaufré Rudel, Prince de Blaye: Gerald Finley |
|
Notes |
UK Premiere Recorded for BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 26 February 2003 |
What the critics say
Richard Whitehouse for Classicalsource.com
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_concert_review.php?id=1067
Over the past two decades, Kaija Saariaho has fashioned a musical idiom of supreme aural finesse – with a range of expression not so much restricted in scope as rarefied in impact. The prospect of an evening-length opera was thus an intriguing prospect.
Completed in 2000, and premiered at the Salzburg Festival that year, L’amour de loin (Love from Afar) is a fable of imagination and reality. Its starting point is the song by twelfth-century Provençal poet Jaufré Rudel in praise of distant love, fashioned into a spare but focused libretto by Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf. Only three singers are called for, their overall vocal range skilfully differentiated in timbre and character. After a 20-minute first act, moreover, the remaining acts average around 25 minutes – suggesting an alignment of dramatic action with a precisely-gauged musical development.
The synopsis itself is of the ’postage stamp’ variety. Jaufré, a Troubadour, has tired of earthly fulfilment and longs for a love that cannot actually be realised. This is made possible by a wondering Pilgrim, who tells of such a woman in Clémence, Countess of Tripoli. A mutual fascination is built up as Jaufré directs his songs to extolling her virtue, the ’virtual relationship’ threatened when he decides to travel to Syria to meet her. Becoming mortally ill more through weight of expectation than by the arduousness of the journey, Jaufré survives long enough for he and the Countess to confess their love, after which she laments his death and prays – though whether to Holy Love or that ’from afar’ is left in the balance.
Musically, the work has the all harmonic sensuousness familiar from Saariaho’s recent music, with intricacy of texture played down in favour of subtly-layered translucency. This allows the vocal lines to carry with ease – though the instrumental writing, sustained across lengthy time-spans, often has a static feel which risks being more an aural backdrop than an active dramatic component. Provençal music of the period makes a pointed appearance, notably in bursts of choral writing representing the human context, while Saariaho’s experience with electronics is largely restricted to gestural enhancement of an atmospheric rather than intrinsic kind. There are some potent colouristic touches, and one stunning coup-de-théâtre in the resounding chords which depict the fateful journey in Act Four, but the overall experience is an abstract and meditative one.
Vocally, there can be few reservations. Dawn Upshaw had the clarity of line and purity of expression necessary for the Countess, with the absence of a more defined ’character’ undoubtedly in accord with the role as Saariaho and Maalouf envisage it. Beth Clayton’s rich-toned mezzo gave the Pilgrim a seer-like authority, setting events in motion as if preordained from a higher source. And if Gerald Finley’s animated intensity often seemed intent on making Jaufré more of a living, feeling persona than was possible, there was no mistaking his commitment. Robert Spano made a welcome appearance at the helm of the BBCSO – alive to the fastidiousness of the score, while not neglecting an overall dramatic follow-through.
In the absence of Peter Sellars’s Salzburg staging (the collaboration with Saariaho is intriguing in itself), the use of lighting to evoke time and space – particularly the ’Occident-Orient’ remove – was beneficial and not over-intrusive. Whether L’amour de loin represents the culmination or merely the continuation of a phase in Saariaho’s composing, and whether it has the density of musical thought necessary to sustain further large-scale works, is uncertain. On its own terms, however, the opera proved a pleasurable and at times affecting experience.
Extracts from S & H Opera Review Colin Anderson
…When Radio 3 broadcasts this 130-minute opera on 26 February, it will be interesting to hear how it stands up to being sound only. Even in this concert performance, with occasional add-on costumes (Finley donned scarf and overcoat to go to sea, for example), a stage divided in half for the two kingdoms (male choir and blue light for Aquitaine, female voices with yellow and green for Tripoli), and all-important surtitles, it was difficult to sustain interest in the whole. The surtitles were the one sure way of keeping in touch with the story. The tale is simple enough, the emotions expressed are timeless (though the opera is specifically set in the 12th-century), yet Saariaho’s music doesn’t always sustain the narrative. First impressions, and I think it’s more Saariaho’s under-characterising than a deficiency on Finley’s part, is that although Jaufré comes across as sensitive and good, he is neither noble or deep. He is given the lyrical, high-art music worthy of a "poet-musician". Dawn Upshaw presented Clémence as altogether more vivid – more emotional, more identifiable; somebody one could feel for. Beth Clayton made a big impression in terms of singing; presumably her impassive rendition was intentional, which suited the pilgrim’s even-handed position as broker. This character is referred to in the text as a male but is assigned to a mezzo for no reason that the composer seemed able to explain (in an unadvertised and concert-delaying talk). Add in an unexpected interval for a long evening.
…The storyline as I have suggested is a simple one. We identify with and share the emotions of Prince and Countess. Yet, although the surtitles maintained interest, the text (as translated to English) is of well-worn exclamations that may be timeless but are also clichés. About twenty minutes before the actual close there seemed a good place to stop – namely Jaufré’s death. Understandable that Clémence should then recite her recrimination and sadness, but did we need to share it, or, more importantly, shouldn’t the music have conveyed it far more grippingly than it did? Dawn Upshaw brought something extra to sustain things.
Under the lucid and sympathetic conducting of Robert Spano, the performance seemed wholly excellent. The jury is out, and the broadcast is diaried, but I’m inclined to think that L’amour de loin needs a full and imaginative staging, perhaps involving film, to really make an impact. (Peter Sellars directed the Salzburg premiere. One can only imagine what he would have done. Maybe a DVD will be forthcoming?) For all the craftsmanship of the composer, and the commitment of the performers on this occasion, L’amour de loin does not seem to be one of those stage works (like, say, Wozzeck, Peter Grimes or Gawain) that have a life outside of the opera house. It’s those operas’ powerful sense of imagery and involvement that L’amour de loin seems curiously lacking in.