Love from Afar Study Guide

Love from Afar Study Guidecoc.caCanadian Opera Company 2011/2012

Love from AfarKAIJA SAARIAHO (b. 1952)

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Cover: The COC presents Love from Afar. Rachel Harnisch (centre) as Clémence in a scene from the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns. Below: Rachel Harnisch as Clémence in the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns. Next page: Phillip Addis (right, on swing) as Jaufré Rudel and Rachel Harnisch (below) as Clémence in the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns

Table of Contents

Welcome .......................................................................................................................................................... 3

Love from Afar: Characters and Synopsis ......................................................................................... 4

Love from Afar: Composer and Librettist Biographies ................................................................ 5

Love from Afar: Opera at a Glance ........................................................................................................ 6

Love from Afar: What to Look for .......................................................................................................... 8

Love from Afar: Listening Guide ........................................................................................................... 10

Credits .............................................................................................................................................................. 14

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Welcome

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Dear Educators and Students,

Opera can move us, it can excite us. It’s a tool for learning about ourselves and those around us. The study of opera opens doors to new cultures, languages, artistic and literary forms, important events in history, music and so much more.

To help you discover the beauty, significance and thrill of opera, the COC has designed accessible Study Guides. Each Study Guide introduces you to the key figures involved in the creation of an opera, and deepens your understanding of its characters and story. Is listening to an opera intimidating for you or your students? Not to worry. We’ve highlighted composers’ musical techniques in easy-to-follow Listening Guides. Not sure if you’re going to understand the staging? We’ve got that covered for you too. The What to Look For articles explain the creative team’s concept, key points of inspiration for their adaptation of the piece and visual elements to look for on stage. Use these Study Guides as the basis for stimulating

and thought-provoking discussions before, during or after your visit to the opera.

I welcome you into the Canadian Opera Company community and encourage you to actively engage in the opera experience long before and after the curtain falls.

Katherine SemcesenAssociate Director, Education and Outreach

“An opera begins

long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in

my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life

long after I’ve left the opera house.”

Maria Callas, renowned

Greek-American soprano

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Love from Afar: Characters and Synopsis

Name Description Voice Type PronunciationJaufré Rudel Prince and troubadour Baritone jo-FREH roo-DEL Clémence Countess of Tripoli Soprano cleh-MAHNSThe Pilgrim Mezzo-soprano

MAIN CHARACTERS

SYNOPSIS

The Prince of Blaye and troubadour Jaufré Rudel is tired of his present life of entertainments. A visiting Pilgrim tells him about Clémence who lives in Tripoli (present-day region of Lebanon) and Jaufré falls in love with her, sight unseen. He composes songs describing his distant love. When the Pilgrim visits Tripoli, he sings one of Jaufré’s songs to Clémence, and describes the troubadour who sings about her. At first, Clémence doubts whether she is worthy of Jaufré’s love, but eventually she falls in love with her distant admirer.

Jaufré and the Pilgrim take a journey across the sea toward Tripoli to meet Clémence. On the voyage, Jaufré falls ill and dreams about their meeting. When they arrive in Tripoli and the couple finally meets, he dies in her arms. At first, Clémence curses her fate, but gradually her grief transforms into acceptance and love.

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Love from Afar: Composer and Librettist Biographies

COMPOSER BIOGRAPHY Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952)

Born Oct. 14, 1952, in Helsinki, Finland, Kaija Saariaho lived a childhood embedded in music, playing several instruments. She began art studies at the Fine Arts School of Helsinki but quickly decided to concentrate on music. At Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy Saariaho worked with the pioneering modernist composer Paavo Heininen and then continued her studies in Freiburg with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber.

From 1982 onwards, Saariaho attended IRCAM (the Institute for Research and Co-ordination in Acoustics and Music) in Paris – the city that has been her home ever since. There she developed techniques of computer-assisted composition and acquired fluency in working both on tape and with live electronics. This experience influenced her approach to writing for orchestra, with its emphasis on the shaping of dense masses of sound in slow transformations. Significantly, her first orchestral piece, Verblendungen (1984), involves a gradual exchange of roles and characters between orchestra and tape. The titles which Saariaho gave to her next linked pair of orchestral works, Du Cristal (1989) and …à la Fumée (1990), suggest their preoccupation with colour and texture.

From the mid 1990s, Saariaho began to expand beyond electronics, often writing strictly acoustical pieces, focusing increasingly on melody and turning to larger forces and broader structures such as opera. Love from Afar, her first opera, received widespread acclaim after its premiere at the 2000 Salzburg Festival. Adriana Mater, her next opera, intertwined a dream world with gritty present-day reality and was a commission for the Opéra national de Paris’s 2006 season. Her most recent opera, Émilie, was written as a monodrama for fellow Finn, Karita Mattila and premiered in Lyon in March 2010. Amin Maalouf was the librettist for all three of these works.

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Throughout her career Saariaho has maintained close associations with individual artists including her librettist, Amin Maalouf, director Peter Sellars, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, flautist Camilla Hoitenga, cellist Anssi Karttunen, soprano Dawn Upshaw and, more recently, pianist Emmanuel Ax. With her choice of subject matter and texts, Saariaho strives to make music that is an urgent communication of ideas, images and emotions between composer and listener.

LIBRETTIST BIOGRAPHYAmin Maalouf (b. 1949)

Born Feb. 25, 1949 in Beirut, Lebanon, author Amin Maalouf studied sociology and economics before joining the Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar, for which he travelled the world covering international politics. With the onset of the Lebanese civil war, Maalouf moved to Paris in 1976, where he continued his work in journalism as an editor before moving on to his literary career.

His work includes The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1986), Leo Africanus (1986), Samarkand (1988), The Gardens of Light (1991), The First Century After Beatrice (1992), Prix Goncourt winner The Rock of Tanios (1993), Ports of Call (1996), Balthasar’s Odyssey (2000) and Origins: A Memoir (2004), winner of the Prix Mediterranée. Written in French, his works have been translated into more than 40 languages.

He has also written four librettos for Kaija Saariaho, including Love from Afar (2000), Adriana Mater (2006), La Passion de Simone (2006) and Émilie (2010).

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Love from Afar: Opera at a Glance

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VerSioN PerforMeD by

CoC: The opera is a

co-production with English National Opera and Vlaamse

Opera.

LANguAge: French

PreMiere: Aug. 15, 2000,

Salzburg Festival, Austria

CoMPoSiTioN:From the initial,

germinating ideas until the score was finished,

Kaija Saariaho spent eight years in dedication to this

work.

iNSTruMeNTATioN: Kaija Saariaho mixes

electronic sounds with traditional instruments like

woodwinds, strings and brass. These sounds are filtered and are

not meant to compete with the score. Instead they act as an extension of

the orchestra and add to the opera’s hypnotic and meditative sound.

LeNgTh of PerforMANCe: Two hours and 35 minutes with one

intermission

SourCe MATeriAL:

While searching for a theme for her first opera, Kaija Saariaho

came across a book, La fleur inverse by French poet and novelist Jacques

Roubaud, which included a brief biography of the life of a 12th-century troubadour

named Jaufré Rudel. The legend of Rudel’s distant love affair became the focus of

Saariaho’s opera.

reCePTioN: Love from Afar has

been acclaimed as one of the first great operas

of the 21st century. In the 11 years since its premiere,

it has been produced seven times around the

world.

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The COC presents Love from Afar. A scene from the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns

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Love from Afar: What to Look for

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This production of Love from Afar first came together in 2009 over a five-week period of collaboration between director Daniele Finzi Pasca, set designer Jean Rabasse, costume designer Kevin Pollard, as well as many other artists including designers, singers, dancers, acrobats, and shadow puppeteers. As a result of this strong collaborative atmosphere, the staging, lighting and design in the production blend seamlessly with the intricacies of Kaija Saariaho’s music. Here are some highlights of how these individual art forms contribute to the meditative and dreamlike quality of this production.

Acrobats/Actors/ClownsDaniele Finzi Pasca began studying clowning at the age of 13. His subsequent work as a director has been greatly indebted to this training, especially in its concern with movement and physicality. This, along with his strong storytelling skills helped him achieve great acclaim for his work on several cirque shows, including Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo.

Each character is not only represented by a singer, but also by two acrobats/dancers whose presence helps physically express the emotions of the character, and embody the fluidity of the score. Because the plot, for the most part, is not propelled by external action but rather unravels through extensive monologues and dialogues, acrobats and dancers provide Finzi Pasca with a perfect theatrical means of manifesting the deeply internal and multi-layered emotions of the characters. Silks and other textiles are used to exaggerate the movements on stage and add to the expressive effects of physical movement.

Enhancing the narrative further, Finzi Pasca introduces two shadow puppeteers to retell the story of the troubadour’s quest to unite with his distant love. These playful retellings add to the overall fairytale quality of the production.

The COC presents Love from Afar. Phillip Addis as Jaufré Rudel and Kathérine Rohrer as the Pilgrim in the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns

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LightingThere are three generations of photographers in the Finzi Pasca family, so light is particularly important to the director’s artistic vision. Notice the prominent use of light and colour throughout the opera. Reds and oranges are associated with the Oriental, as well as love, passion and fire, while blues suggest the counterpoint of the Occident, as well as emotional calm, serenity and peace.

At the end of the opera the stage is lit to show Jaufré’s ascent to the heavens, while the chorus members shine searchlights onto the ceiling. Gradually the number of searchlights increases, bathing the entire auditorium in a brilliant white light. How would you interpret this ending?

SetsThe simplicity of the action is reflected in the minimalistic set. Set designer Jean Rabasse chooses to use cut-out transparencies and panels to create the illusion of a greater depth of space.

VideoSeascape projections designer Roberto Vitalini and his team created video projections of water that are shown on a scrim behind the foreground action. The sea and water are of symbolic importance to the story and are referred to and represented in many different ways. One particular video of the sea was created with a computer program that rendered different elements of the story and Kaija Saariaho’s music as animated, digital waves. For example, as the music and story become more emotionally charged, the projection of the water becomes more turbulent and agitated.

Roberto Vitalini and his company (Bashiba) are most interested in creating designs in which technology is

responsively linked together with narrative, space and different environments. To learn more about Vitalini and his creative approach, visit his company website at bashiba.com.

Photos of this production of Love from Afar can also be found on Bashiba’s Flickr page.

CostumesFor most of the opera, Jaufré wears a printed and painted waistcoat decorated with symbols of learning, intellect and beauty. This indicates to the audience that he is more than just a poet; he’s an enlightened man who is interested in all aspects of the world.

Clémence is adorned in red fabrics, a colour associated with love, desire and an Eastern cultural influence. At the start of the opera her coat is tightly fastened, but as the story develops she begins to peel off the layers of her costume, showing her sensuality, vulnerability and a growing love for Jaufré.

Since the Pilgrim is meant to be an androgynous character, the costumes reference both male and female styles. The muted colours and more structured pieces allude to the Pilgrim’s male traits, while the fabrics and whimsical nature of some of the skirt-like costumes suggest a more feminine look.

Some of the costumes are also designed to contribute to the action. Long exaggerated sleeves are made with huge extensions, which are manipulated by actors, giving the impression that the singers are surrounded by huge, winged beings. Could this indicate something about these characters being larger-than-life? Or perhaps the long sleeves convey a sense of entrapment, of characters surrounded by their own fate?

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Below: The COC presents Love from Afar. Rachel Harnisch as Clémence and Phillip Addis as Jaufré Rudel in the Vlaamse Opera production, 2010. Photo: Annemie Augustijns

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Having had its world premiere in 2000, Love from Afar is a comparatively new opera, which makes listening to it a very exciting undertaking. Mainstays of the repertoire, like Tosca (1900), La Traviata (1853) and The Magic Flute (1791), have been heard, interpreted and analyzed for hundreds of years, which means that, even at first listen, many passages from these works may sound familiar to you because their attributes have been a part of our collective musical culture. But with a much newer work, like Love from Afar, the music may sound foreign or different to our ears because we may not have heard anything quite like it before, or we may not fully understand the meaning behind a composer’s way of exploring sound. Yet since its premiere, Love from Afar has rapidly gained international acclaim and solidified its status as an operatic masterpiece worthy of our attention, because it is a work that connects with listeners in a profound way.

The purpose of this Listening Guide is to shed light on Kaija Saariaho’s music in Love from Afar and her compositional influences. Her Finnish background, a culture that values music in general and composition in particular, plays a fundamental role in her individual musical language. She is a highly educated composer who has formal training in many musical styles of tonal and atonal music, including serialism* and spectralism**. Since the early stages of her career, Finland’s natural landscape, and the outdoors in general, have provided a source of inspiration for Saariaho. She is interested in finding new musical ways to interpret the sounds, rhythms and colours of the natural environment – the form of the wave, the unpredictable pulse of the wind, or the luminosity of the birdsong. She achieves this through a combination of electronic and acoustic means.

The following excerpts will examine the musical traits of the six individual “voices” in Love from Afar including the orchestra, electronic material, the three leading characters (Jaufré, Clémence and the Pilgrim), and the chorus, which combine to form a seamlessly integrated score. You can experience the Listening Guide online at coc.ca/Radio.

Love from Afar: Listening Guide

*Serialism is a

compositional technique using a fixed series of notes which are manipulated in

various ways to give the series some

unity.

**Spectralism is a form of music

in which the compositional technique is informed by analysis of

the sound spectrum. Using specialized computer programs, sounds are analyzed, manipulated and transformed, to generate

new sounds that can be used as the basis for creating innovative harmonies, textures, timbres,

rhythms, colours and dynamics. The style of music composition originated in France in the

1970s. One of the leading places of research and development of this modern approach to

musical composition was (and still is) the Institute for Research and

Co-ordination in Acoustics and Music (IRCAM) in Paris.

Saariaho’s musical

language can be described as “pluralistic,” because her works cannot be defined by a strict set of compositional techniques

belonging to any one musical style.

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Musical excerpt #1“Traversée” (“Passage”)

Connection to the Story: Titles are important in Saariaho’s compositions as she believes that they provide guidance and points of reference for the listener. Each scene or tableaux in Love from Afar is given a title rather than assigned a number (e.g. “Act I, Scene ii,” as per traditional operatic practice). The title of the opening piece, Traversée, meaning “passage” or “crossing,” encompasses many of the underlying themes in the opera including: distant love, crossing of cultures, physical crossing of land and water, crossing from dreams to reality, crossing of genders, and passage of life to death. From the very beginning then, the title connects this multi-faceted idea of “crossing” or “passage” with the music, and guides the listener to engage with the score according to this central theme.

The orchestra and electronic Material: The opening sets the atmosphere for the piece and introduces us to sounds that will be further developed and explored throughout the work. Saariaho uses 30 different instruments and electronics in different combinations to produce a large variety of sounds. She is fascinated with the analysis of the sound spectrum. For example, in addition to using regular notation found in traditional Western music, Saariaho uses computer programs to break down notes or other concrete sounds into smaller fragments of sound and manipulates and/or transforms their original forms. By breaking down the notes into their microtones or changing their structure, she opens the door to new harmonies, textures and timbres beyond the conventions of Western music. Electronics are never used in tokenistic fashion, but are an organic and integral part of the orchestral texture. Moreover, when Saariaho uses combinations of natural, electronic and instrumental sounds in her music she does so without placing them in hierarchical order. By giving the sounds equal value she seamlessly integrates them into one unified form of expression.

In the case of Love from Afar the electronics are played by the pianist and controlled by the sound technicians. The piano player in the pit orchestra has an additional MIDI keyboard (a piano-style device with 88 keys) connected to a computer. Each key on this keyboard triggers a pre-recorded sound cue in the computer which is then sent to several speakers in the auditorium. There are 80 of these sound cues throughout the opera.

It should give the effect of a “three-dimensional” auditory experience, with sound moving around and inhabiting the space, similar to surround sound at the movie theatre.

From there, a sound designer will plan the type, number and placement of the speakers and make sure the sounds are mixed and balanced from the audience’s point of view. Once the sound levels have been established between the orchestra, the singers and the electronic part, they will be executed in each performance in a semi-automated way, with the house mixing board operated by a sound technician.

As you listen to the opera, notice

how the musical texture of the sound becomes

denser as the characters’ psychological states become increasingly

troubled.

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Musical excerpt #2Premier Acte, Premier Tableau: “Jaufré rudel”

Connection to the Story: Jaufré Rudel, a prince and troubadour from Blaye (in present-day France) is tired and bored with his life. To entertain himself he begins to sing and fantasize about a woman whom he has never met. His friends, represented by a chorus, lecture and mock him.

Jaufré: The medieval flavour of the score can be heard in Jaufré’s opening lines. He is a troubadour, a nobleman of the 12th century who writes poetry and music, often on the theme of distant and unrequited love. The medieval quality of his music is accentuated by the parallel perfect fourths and perfect fifth intervals (spacings between the notes) in his melody and in that of the harp. His vocal lines – reminiscent of plainchant (style of singing/chanting in the Catholic Church) and medieval melodies – move step-wise and are ornamented with melismas (singing one syllable but hitting several different notes in succession while doing so).

Musical excerpt #3 Premier Acte, Deuxième Tableau: “Le Pèlerin” (“The Pilgrim”)

Connection to the Story: The Pilgrim arrives and tells Jaufré about a countess, Clémence, who lives in Tripoli and Jaufré instantly falls in love with her.

The Pilgrim: The descending notes of the piccolo and flutes at the beginning of the excerpt announce the arrival of the Pilgrim, who acts like a messenger between Jaufré and Clémence. Saariaho wrote the role for a mezzo-soprano. This voice type was specifically chosen for this character as it is the middle female voice type and it serves as a perfect bridge between Jaufré and Clémence’s vocal timbres, which are baritone (middle male voice) and soprano (highest female voice), respectively. Though the role is sung by a female, it is never explicitly stated if the Pilgrim is female or male. To add further ambiguity to this character, the Pilgrim’s vocal range is lower when singing with Jaufré and higher when communicating with Clémence.

The Chorus: Dramatically, the male and female choruses comment on the events of the narrative. Musically, the chorus provides a transition in texture and sound between the orchestra and soloists. In this excerpt, the male chorus comments on how Jaufré’s boat is drifting away from shore just like his mind is wandering away in a dream-like state with thoughts of Clémence. Saariaho continues to integrate the chorus in this scene by means of a soundscape to represent the drifting boat and Jaufré’s fleeting thoughts.

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Music excerpt #4Deuxième Acte, Deuxième Tableaux: “L’amour de loin” (“Love from Afar”)

Connection to the Story: Immediately prior to this excerpt, the Pilgrim visits Clémence in Tripoli and informs her that a man from another land has fallen in love with her. The Pilgrim sings one of Jaufré’s songs, composed especially for Clémence, and describes the troubadour who sings of her. When the Pilgrim leaves, Clémence recites the song in Occitan (an old French dialect from southern France).

Clémence: Jaufré’s song “Ja mais d’amor nom gauzirai” (“Never shall I delight in love”) is extremely important to the overall opera because it is based on a poem that was one of the original inspirations for the score. Though Saariaho did see a manuscript of the original song, she did not use the original melody in the opera. Instead, she wrote completely new music for the text to match the rest of the opera’s musical language.

But when it is reiterated by Clémence (after it is sung by the Pilgrim), Saariaho transforms the melody yet again and sets the text to music with more parallel octaves, lush ornamentations, hinting at a more exotic, distant sound. Using the original Occitanian text in combination with a more Eastern-inspired sound when the song is repeated emphasizes the medieval tone in the opera and the vast cultural and physical distances between Clémence and her troubadour admirer.

Saariaho, captivated by the soprano voice with its flexibility and bright colour, composed music for Clémence that generally lingers and shimmers high in the register throughout the entire work. Her high vocal range represents her purity and the high pedestal on which she is placed by Jaufré. Even her name, meaning “mercy,” echoes these heavenly traits.

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Above: Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Photo: Sam Javanrouh

The CoC offers a wide variety of school programs for Kindergarten to grade 12.

To find out more, visit our website at coc.ca/Explore or contact:

Education & OutreachCanadian Opera Company

Tel: 416-306-2392Fax: [email protected]

Love from Afar Study Guide editors: Katherine Semcesen, Associate Director, Education and Outreach; Nikita Gourski, Development Communications Assistant; Suzanne Vanstone, Senior Communications Manager, Editorial; Gianna Wichelow, Senior Communications Manager, Creative; Carly Anderson, Children & Youth Programs, Manager

The COC Gratefully Acknowledges:

Charitable Registration Number: 11883 4829 RR0001

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Love from Afar Study Guide