The opera
l’Amour de loin (Distant love) is by the Finnish
composer Kaija Saariaho who was born in Helsinki in 1952 and has
lived in Paris since 1982. It is based on
La vida breve (Life
is short) by the twelfth-century troubadour and the Prince of
Blaye, Jaufré Rudel. Rudel is sick and tired of his superficial
and hedonistic life-style and dreams of distant love. He is quite
surprised by the arrival of a pilgrim from overseas, from Outre-Mer,
at the time a name that was frequently given to the states or
regions of the crusaders, like Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli, Jerusalem,
and large parts of Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey.
The pilgrim claims that he knows of Rudel’s ‘distant love’ and
of Clémence, the woman involved. Rudel is so much obsessed by
the idea and what the pilgrim tells him that he decides to sail
to find his distant beloved. Meanwhile, Clémence has become aware
of the Prince’s devotion to her. She lives far away, in Tripoli.
Initially she is very suspicious, but gradually becomes more interested
in her Prince from a far-away country. Obsessed, she is haunted
by her dreams of this unknown lover. Jaufré’s voyage appears to
be a crusade against the elements and himself. By the time he
arrives in the port of Tripoli he is exhausted and seriously ill.
But he traces Clémence and they passionately fall into each other’s
arms, shortly before Jaufré dies.
The libretto for Saariaho’s first opera was written by the French-Lebanese
author Amin Maalouf. The high emotional gear of Maalouf’s poetry
inspired Saariaho to design an almost dream-like score. It is
filled with a most tender and dreamy soundscape that frequently
reminds us of Debussy’s impressionistic sound images and melismas.
This music is superbly layered and detailed. Saariaho’s great
imagination has created the most expressive vocal lines mingled
with delicate orchestral colors, incredibly polished harmonies
and indolent pedal points. This is all about dreams and Saariaho
goes to great length to capture their atmosphere and detail.
One of the composer’s great challenges must have been to avoid
the static waves and sculptures of sound that are so often associated
with ‘impressionism’. Left to their own devices they produce ‘music
without bite’ lacking the capacity to enhance characters and emotions.
This is the kind of music that almost endlessly and mercilessly
chokes any action yet at the same time making emotions almost
painfully tangible. Composers who espouse this approach should
be ‘punished’ by compulsory long term close study of Debussy’s
Pelléas et Mélisande!
Saariaho avoids these shoals, creating a translucent and crushing
masterpiece by ‘translating’ the fascinating libretto into a huge
variety of melodic and harmonic modes. These derive from the enchanting
and shimmering Middle East and from medieval European chant. They
are blended with the electronic extravaganzas of the avant-garde
once associated with the experimental workshops that made Darmstadt
the foremost bastion of contemporary serial music.
And what a great composer she is! She offers us a gorgeous theatre
work which lives up to the worldwide praise heaped upon it since
its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2000. There it
was conducted by the awe-inspiring Kent Nagano and meticulously
prepared and ravishingly produced by Peter Sellars. The Holland
Festival 2005 production directed by Pierre Audi was far less
successful.
Notwithstanding five consecutive acts in just two hours
l’Amour
de loin is a stage work with long stretches, where energetic
action is purposely but clearly missing. This is emphasized by
the orchestral scoring which happens to reflect instead of counterpointing
the abundantly flowing vocal lines. The ultimate effect of Saariaho’s
great and colorful imagination as a composer is so immensely attractive
and compelling that hardly anyone will be aware of time and place
when attending a dreamlike production of this calibre. The traditional
orchestral instruments and their electronic counterparts are so
ingeniously and skilfully mixed or contrasted that we just know
that this is nothing less than an extremely poignant and resonant
work of art that should easily stand the test of time. We are
overwhelmed by Saariaho’s originally drafted dissonances and harsh
harmonies, but also those rock-steady pedal tones and the open
skies of tonal development. Olivier Messiaen’s sound-world is
hardly one block away. He must have been Saariaho’s greatest inspiration
at times: she attended the stunning performance of his
Saint
François d’Assise at the 1992 Salzburg Festival and was simply
overwhelmed by it.
This brings me to the question whether we should see and hear
the performance, instead of only listening to it. I ask this especially
because there is a Deutsche Grammophon DVD of that great spellbinding
performance conducted by Salonen, a Peter Sellars production,
with Dawn Upshaw, Gerald Finley, Monica Groop, and the Finnish
National Opera (2005). It happened to be one of the most impressive
performances ever given at the FNO’s new opera house.
After having heard Harmonia Mundi’s brand new recording I am not
so sure though. The reasons are twofold. First of all, ‘just’
hearing the work might more easily draw you into the finest filigree
of this great score undistracted by the stage action. The other
reason is that the sound quality of this new release easily supersedes
that of the DVD. There is more body, also in the sparse lines,
the double bass really goes ‘down under’ and the solo and choral
voices are superbly caught. The sound of music is the sound of
magic. Just try the final act, the first tableau, to find your
way through the transparent beauties laid out for you by this
disc.
Kent Nagano gave the work its premiere in Salzburg. He knows how
to create and shape the atmospheric anxiety of the theatre. He
moulds the phrases impeccably and expresses the kind of instrumental
timbre that makes it hard to hear the transition from instrumental
to vocal lines. Nagano’s illuminating palette moulds the musical
means for each and every character, further emphasized by Saariaho’s
own musical differentiation by character: Clémence’s melodies
mainly dwell in seconds and thirds, Jaufré in fourths and fifths,
the pilgrim’s vocal contributions are dominated by a quickly descending
‘leitmotif’. There is some dazzling string playing, electrifying
percussion, and lustrous woodwinds lifting the impressionistic
veil. And the electronics? We have definitely arrived in the 21st
century! Here is the composer’s recommended full list: 1. a Mac(intosh)
computer, at least a G4/400Mhz with Mac OS 9.0.4 or higher; 2.
a multi track audio card, e.g. Korg 1212 I/O (or any other allowing
ADAT + SPDIF, compatible with the Mac and usable with an ASIO
driver) to play the sound files in multi channels diffusion; 3.
an 8 octave MIDI keyboard, e.g. Yamaha KX88 to trigger sound files
on the Mac; 4. a simple USB MIDI interface to connect the keyboard
to the Mac; 5. a digital mixing desk (preferably a Yamaha O2R
with an ADAT card used as digital input from the sound card) used
for amplification and diffusion; 6. a version of the Max-MSP software
3.6.2 or higher.
Saariaho may have thought of Dawn Upshaw as her ideal Clémence,
but we can be quite happy with Ekaterina Lekhina who matches Upshaw’s
superb performance in each and every aspect. Lekhina’s brighter
soprano voice carries the required scale of emotions without fail
and she portrays her role with the required vocal steadiness and
credibility. Daniel Belcher maybe less voluptuously toned than
Gerald Finley on the DVD, but he is almost visible when he creates
the very best out of these long and sensitive lyric textures in
the score. Even more so, he also reveals the morbid nature of
his role to the very limit without falling into the pitfall of
self-indulgent anachronisms. Todorovitch, with his very strong
stage presence, is better able to project the Pilgrim’s ambiguous
role, unquestionably stepping out of the perfunctory role of mediator
between Jaufré and Clémence. The recording team has correctly
captured the choir from one side of the stage, with a crystal
clear focus on their plaintive and chatty involvement.
I would not want to be without both: the DVD and this latest SACD
release by Harmonia Mundi. The SACD is an outright winner in terms
of sheer purity and beauty of sound and detailing. No question
about it: this is a great production!
Aart Van der Wal
www.opusklassiek.nl
Daniel Belcher (Jaufré Rudel) (tenor); Ekaterina Lekhina (Clémence)
(soprano); Marie-Ange Todorovitch (Pilgrim) (mezzo) 
