Name: Les pêcheurs de perles
Start: 2022-06-23T19:30:00
End: 2027-04-23T19:30:00
Location: Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Set in a faraway island paradise, Georges Bizet tells the story of a love triangle complicated by true friendship.

Zurga and Nadir are old friends, but in the past they were nearly driven apart by their mutual love for Leïla, a priestess of Brahma. The two men swore to renounce their love for the beautiful young woman, but neither this promise nor Leïla’s vow of chastity prevents her and Nadir from being overcome by longing when their paths cross again.

They are caught by the high priest, and as the leader of the pearl fishers’ village it falls to Zurga to pass sentence. Torn between friendship and jealousy, between a desire for revenge and a sense of duty, Zurga hesitates over whether to have the oath-breakers executed…

Les pêcheurs de perles marked the 25-year-old Bizet’s breakthrough as an operatic composer, 12 years prior to achieving global success with Carmen.

Inspired by a subject matter infused with the exoticism so popular at that time, he produced a score with colourful instrumentation, enchanting melodies and powerful theatre music, which finds expression both in large-scale choral tableaus and chamber-play-like scenes between the main characters.

Both dramatically and musically, the pivotal point of the opera is the famous duet "Au fond du temple saint" between Zurga and Nadir, an operatic masterpiece that is the main factor responsible for the rediscovery of this rarely performed opera.

Additional information

The Pearl Fishers

Opera in three acts (1863)