Amour

On December 1, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City will perform its first opera by a female composer since 1903. Kaija Saariaho’s 2000 opera “L’Amour de Loin” is a haunting tale of love transcending the bounds of distance and death, adapted from a medieval troubadour’s fictionalized life story. There are only three characters: Jaufre the troubadour, Clémence the Countess of Tripoli, whom he falls in love with sight unseen, and the Pilgrim, a trouser role who carries the couple’s messages and songs back and forth across the ocean.