L'Amour de loin
(Love from Afar) is an opera in five acts with music by Kaija Saariaho and a French-language libretto by Amin Maalouf. The opera received its world premiere performance on 15 August 2000 at the Salzburg Festival.

Saariaho, living in Paris since 1982, had become familiar in 1993 with "La vida breve" by one of the first great 12th-century troubadours, Jaufré Rudel. She did not think she was capable of writing an opera until she saw Peter Sellars's staging of Messiaen’s opera "Saint François d'Assise" at the 1992 Salzburg Festival. "If that is an opera, then I can write one", she has said she thought.

Her idea for the opera evolved over the following seven or eight years. She first set a Jaufré poem to music in "Lonh" (1996) for soprano and electronic instruments.

The sensibilities and backgrounds of both Maalouf, a Lebanese-French author and journalist also living in Paris, and Saariaho – both voluntary exiles – brought them together to turn "a seemingly simple story into a complex story very simply told...[and with] the straightforward trajectory of its plot, "L’Amour de loin" turns anxiously around deeper themes – obsession and devotion, reality and illusion, the loneliness of the artist, the need to belong".

Having secured an advance commitment from Salzburg Festival director Gerard Mortier to stage the opera, Saariaho began "L'Amour de loin" in 1999. The SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden-Freiburg, an ensemble well known for its excellence in contemporary music, was also on board.

"L'Amour de loin" received the 2003 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.
Q241432
Kaija Saariaho
PER
Q131084
libretto
Concept
Q115243
Amin Maalouf
PER
Q256443
Salzburg Festival
PER
Q90
Paris
LOC
Q186370
troubadour
Concept
Q5260
Jaufré Rudel
PER
Q1867549
Peter Sellars
PER
Q151593
Messiaen
PER
Q2605813
Saint François d'Assise
MEDIA
None
Lonh
UNK
Q464662
Gerard Mortier
PER
Q24039090
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden-Freiburg
ORG
Q844284
Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition
EVE
Q1093081
L'Amour de loin
MEDIA
Q1093081
L'Amour de loin
MEDIA
2000-08-15T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
15 August 2000
DATE
1982-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1982
DATE
1993-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1993
DATE
1992-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1992
DATE
1999-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1999
DATE
2003-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2003
DATE
+12^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
12
NUMBER
+1996^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1996
NUMBER
composer
librettist
location of first performance
date of first performance
occupation