Les Pêcheurs de Perles

Les Pêcheurs de Perles (“The Pearl Fishers”) is the French composer Bizet’s “other” opera, and has generally lived in the shadow of the massively popular Carmen. It is still regularly staged, however, and has many attractions of its own. Not least of these is the famous duet “Au fond du temple saint”, where two male characters, Nadir and Zurga, sing fervently of their love for the same woman, the Hindu priestess Leïla. Nadir’s Act I aria “Je crois entendre encore” is another highlight, a hauntingly beautiful melody set in the tenor’s high register. Twelve years before Carmen, Bizet was also already writing powerfully for the chorus, and orchestrating with a finely honed instinct for atmosphere and colour. The critics were not kind to Les Pêcheurs de Perles when it premiered in 1863. But it was a prodigious achievement for a 24-year-old, and holds a firm position on the international opera stage today.