Les pecheurs de perles

Against the backdrop of a faraway island paradise, Georges Bizet describes a love triangle complicated by true friendship: Once before, love for the Brahmin Leïla threatened to divide long-time friends Zurga and Nadir. Although both men have sworn to each other to renounce the beautiful young woman, neither this promise nor Leïla's vow of chastity can prevent her and Nadir from being overcome by desire one after the other when they meet again.

When the couple is caught by the chief priest, Zurga, as leader of the pearl fishing village, is supposed to sentence the death sentence on the two perjurors. Torn between friendship and jealousy, desire for revenge and a sense of duty, Zurga begins to falter... Twelve years before the world success of his Carmen, the 25-year-old Bizet achieved a breakthrough as an opera composer with his pearl fishermen. The subject matter, which was so popular at the time, inspired him to create a score with colorful instrumentation, evocative melodies and effective theatre music, which unfolds in large-scale choral tableaux as well as in the chamber play-like scenes between the protagonists. The dramatic as well as musical linchpin is the famous duet “Au fond du temple saint” by Zurga and Nadir — a pearl of opera literature that is ultimately even thanks to the rediscovery of the opera, which is still rarely performed today.