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Saariaho, living in Paris since 1982, had become familiar in 1993 with La vida breve by one of the first great troubadours of the 12th century, Jaufré Rudel. It was at this early stage that she believed she had found the perfect plot for an opera—the legend of Rudel’s distant love affair, which he referred to in his songs as "amor de lonh" or "pure love from afar" in his songs. This tradition of “amour de loin” emerged in the 12th century and involved a man setting himself the task of seducing a woman who remains inaccessible to him because she is married, bound by social prohibitions, or simply non-existent. Troubadour poems of the period raised love of a woman to an ideal, transgressing social norms, almost idealizing adultery.
Within Saariaho’s own oeuvre, several works paved the way for her first opera including Château de l’âme for soprano, women’s chorus and orchestra (1995) and a 1996 work for soprano and electronics entitled Lonh which used a text based on Jaufré’s poem “Lanquand li jorn” originally written in Occitan, the language of medieval Provence. Lonh is the Occitan word whose French equivalent would be “de loin” or, “from afar”. In the composer’s mind, Lonh symbolically established the prologue for her opera and both its music and poetry are quoted in the second scene of Act II of Love from Afar. Finally, there was 1999’s Oltra mar for orchestra and mixes chorus which links East and West, medieval poetics and the troubadour Rudel with the idea of a sea-crossing and its changes in atmosphere.
Salzburg Festival, Salzburg, Austria, Aug. 15, 2000, a co-production with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (2001) and the Santa Fe Opera (2002). Peter Sellars directed this original production.
Love from Afar has been acclaimed as likely the first great opera of the 21st century. It has met with great success, garnering seven productions in the nine years since its 2000 Salzburg Festival premiere, where it was praised as “a haunting and resonant work . . . often transfixing and utterly distinguished. The ovations were prolonged and deserved.” (Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, Aug. 17, 2000).
Russell Braun as Jaufré (downstage left), Erin Wall as Clémence (back, centre) and Krisztina Szabó as the Pilgrim (downstage right) in the Canadian Opera Company production of Love from Afar, 2012. Photo: Michael Cooper
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