Honoring Finnish Composer Kaija Saariaho

Clasart Classic presents Kaija Saariaho’s masterpiece L’AMOUR DE LOIN.

Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho brought new textures to modernist music, sometimes using electronics, and became the first female composer to have two operas staged by the Met. One of them, L'AMOUR DE LOIN, is available through Clasart Classic's Catalogue.

Robert Lepage’s dreamlike production, with its thousands of twinkling LED lights stretching across the stage to represent the sea, encapsulates the mystic feeling of L'AMOUR DE LOIN, Saariaho’s haunting opera of distant love. Eric Owens is Jaufré Rudel, a troubadour in 12th century France who has become tired of his hedonistic life and longs for an idealised love. Enter the Pilgrim (Tamara Mumford) who tells him his perfect love does, in fact, exist, far across the sea. She is Clémence, Countess of Tripoli (Susanna Phillips). The magic of the characters’ inner lives as they explore the meaning of love, longing, life, and death is heightened by Saariaho’s hypnotic and bewitching score, conducted by Susanna Mälkki.

"…this vivid, enormously affecting production, conceived by Robert Lepage, is a landmark in itself, delving into the profound theatricality beyond the opera’s dreamy surface." (The Wall Street Journal)

"With a top-notch all-American cast of Susanna Phillips, Tamara Mumford, and Eric Owens, it is a captivating night of opera." (Huffington Post)

Recording location The Metropolitan Opera
Production year 2016
Duration 141min.
Production Company The Metropolitan Opera
Stage Director Robert Lepage
Composer Kaija Saariaho
Orchestra / Band The Metropolitan Opera
Conductor Susanna Mälkki
Soloist Susanna Phillips
Soloist Tamara Mumford
Soloist Eric Owens