Metropolitan Opera: L'Amour de Loin

press release: Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin (“Love From Afar”), one of the most highly praised operas of recent years, has its Met premiere this season in a production directed by Robert Lepage and conducted by Susanna Mälkki in her Met debut. Lepage’s staging, which uses thousands of LED lights to create the sea that separates the opera’s distant lovers, is a co-production with L’Opéra de Québec, where it premiered to acclaim in the summer of 2015. Susanna Phillips stars as Clémence, the Countess of Tripoli, opposite Eric Owens as Jaufré Rudel, a troubadour on a quest to find his perfect love, and Tamara Mumford as the Pilgrim who carries messages back and forth between them.