LOVE FROM AFAR

A few years ago I found myself in Nepal where one morning I met a pilgrim. He had been walking for ten years and wanted to travel round the whole world. From the day he had begun his adventure, he had never had his hair cut. I asked him when would he stop traveling. He replied, ‘When my braided hair is long enough to follow behind me.’ We are all born on a sphere and, therefore, if we embark on a long journey following a straight line, sooner or later we will end up in the very same place from where we started. When I first heard L’Amour de loin I was astonished by the fluidity of this piece of music, so full of mystery. Seductive images of lost people searching for love and trying to find themselves immediately came to mind. Only the Pilgrim, the mystic paradoxically always on the move, embodies the rare ability of knowing how to live in the present. Then there is the sea, its continuous dance, movement and breath.

Daniele Finzi Pasca

L’Amour de loin (Love from afar)

A co-production English National Opera, De Vlaamse Opera and Canadian Opera Company

Music: Kaija Saariaho
Livret from Amin Maalouf
Director and lights designer: Daniele Finzi Pasca
Set: Jean Rabasse
Costume: Kevin Pollard
Video design: Roberto Vitalini for bashiba.com
Artistic Associate: Julie Hamelin
Director’s Assistant: Gabriele Finzi Pasca
Lighting designer: Alexis Bowles

Primo allestimento a Londra
Direction musical: Edward Gardner

Cast
Jaufré Rudel: Philip Addis
Clémence: Rachel Harnisch
Le Pèlerin: Kathérine Rohrer

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