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L’amour de loin (Love form afar) synopsis

L’amour de loin (Love form afar) synopsis

 Music by Kaija Saariaho

Libretto by Amin Maalouf

First performed: 2000

 The action is set during the 12th century in Aquitaine, Tripoli and at sea.

 Act One

 A chateau in Aquitaine

 Jaufré Rudel, prince of Blaye, is weary of the life of pleasure led by the young people of his rank. He yearns for a different, distant love, but he is resigned to the idea that he will never find it. A group of his former companions reproach him for his change of attitude and mock him. They tell them that the woman of whom he sings does not exist. However, a Pilgrim who has arrived from overseas asserts that there is such a woman, and that he has met her. Jaufré can no longer think of anything but her.

Act Two

 A garden in Tripoli

 Having returned to the East, the Pilgrim meets Clémence, Countess of Tripoli, and reveals to her that in the West there is a troubadour-prince who fetes her in his songs and calls her his ‘love from afar’. At first she is offended, but then begins to dream of this strange and distant lover, and wonders if she deserves such devotion.

 Act Three

 Scene 1: A chateau in Aquitaine

 The Pilgrim has returned to Blaye. He tells Jaufré that the lady now knows that he sings of her. At this news Jaufré resolves to visit her in person.

 Scene 2: Tripoli, by the sea

 Clémence, for her part, prefers that the relationship remain distant. She does not want to spend her life in a state of constant anticipation, nor does she wish to suffer.

 Act Four

 At sea

 Jaufré is impatient to find his ‘love from afar’, but at the same time he dreads the meeting. He regrets having set off on impulse, and his anguish is such that he falls ill, becoming more unwell the nearer he gets to Tripoli. He arrives there dying.

Act Five

 A garden in Tripoli

 When the ship docks, the Pilgrim goes ahead to warn Clémence that Jaufré is here but that he is on the point of death and is asking to see her. The troubadour-prince arrives at the citadel unconscious, carried on a stretcher. In the presence of the woman of whom he sang, he slowly revives. Thus the two ‘lovers from afar’ meet, and with tragedy approaching they throw caution to the wind. They declare their passion, embrace, and promise to love each other. When Jaufré dies in her arms, Clémence rebels against heaven; then, believing herself to blame for his death, she decides to take the veil. She is seen in prayer, but her words are ambiguous: it remains unclear to whom she is praying, her distant God or her ‘love from afar’.