The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho once swore she'd never write an opera. Now she's written two. Her latest, Adriana Mater, was premiered in Paris last year, but isn't available yet on DVD. But her first is, and it's an amazing experience.
L'Amour de Loin (Distant Love) tells the story of the Medieval troubadour Jaufre Rudel and his love for Clemence, a French countess living in Tripoli. After a life of dissipation in Bordeaux he decides to dedicate himself to a perfect woman. He's heard of Clemence but never met her. He's taken by sea to meet her by a Pilgrim, the last of the opera's three characters, and dies in Clemence's arms moments after they meet.
The musical style is exotic and richly-textured, apparently keyless but far from jarring to the ears. Initially there's a huge curtain of sound, but then it develops into a wide variety of effects. The lasting impression is of mystery, but the anguish and cosmic discontent of both Rudel and Clemence are also rendered. Critics have seen the influence of Debussy and Messiaen, but it's really a complex and individual sound that's far from alienating, as modernism so often was.
What you see is the original 2000 production by Peter Sellars, but performed in Helsinki in 2004.The set consists of two metal corkscrew staircases separated by a stage covered with water. A glass boat illuminated from inside transports Rudel and the Pilgrim from one staircase across to the other.
Dawn Upshaw, who the piece was in part written for, sings Clemence, Gerald Finley sings Rudel, and Monica Groop the Pilgrim. The language is French, with subtitles in French, German, English and Spanish.
I was totally unprepared for was the power of this shimmering instrumental music, combined with strong vocal lines delivered by exceptionally committed performers. Strong, too, is the role of the chorus, sometimes Rudel's friends, sometimes citizens of Tripoli. Ancient troubadour motifs are woven into the musical texture.
The Finnish National Opera Orchestra is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, a sufficient recommendation in itself, and he comments in a Bonus interview that the work reveals added richness on later hearings (but then what music doesn't)? The other interviews, each of about three minutes, are with Saaraiho and Sellars.
The real concerns of L'Amour de Loin are love and death, opera's most enduring topics. Saaraiho has struggled all her life against tradition, but here a subject that can know no end has finally caught up with her.
There are many version's of Mozart's Don Giovann available on DVD and Jingo has just released another in Taiwan. While not being the best available, it's full of fun and musical pleasure. Recorded at the Theater an der Wien in 1999 with Riccardo Muti and the Vienna State Opera, it's a traditional staging set in the early 18th century and dominated my the singers' elaborate costumes and, in particular, their ostentatious and frequently gigantic hats.
Muti conducts with a careful traditionalism, but also power. Carlos Alvarez sings Giovanni, Ildebrando d' Arcangelo is Leporello, and Angelika Kirschlager makes an unusually forceful Zerlina. It's altogether sumptuous to look at and sung with distinction. It is comparable to the 1991 Cologne version with Thomas Allen, conducted by James Conlon, though slightly less dramatic. Both productions are marked by an old European sense that great masterpieces can't be improved on by eccentric interpretation, and that what you need to do is employ the best talent available in every department, and the work will then display itself in all its complexity and richness.
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