The Metropolitan Opera: L’Amour de Loin

The Metropolitan Opera: L’Amour de Loin (2016) is a music film directed by Robert Lepage, Gary Halvorson.

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 idealized 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.

Cast

Susanna Phillips

Clémence

Tamara Mumford

The Pilgrim

Eric Owens

Jaufré Rudel

Deborah Voigt

Self - Host

MET Orchestra