The Sunday Opera will be traveling to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) this week (11/09 3:00 p.m.) with George Bizet’s “Les pecheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers)” in a production from the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Set in “ancient times,” the opera looks at a friendship that is destroyed by love.Here, Zurga (Florian Sempey) and Nadir (Pene Pati) have both fallen in love with the priestess Leila (Elsa Benoit) but make a solemn promise to each other that neither man would act on that love since Leila is forbidden to have a lover, and it has already tested their friendship.
Some time passes, and Nadir arrives in Zurga’s village where the two have a warm reunion.Soon after, the new priestess arrives, and both men are troubled when they find that it is Leila. It soon becomes apparent that Nadir has in fact pursued Leila, and the two have had a relationship which should mean that both Nadir and Leila are to be put to death. Zurga feels betrayed by Nadir, especially since he still longs for Leila himself and seems to be determined to follow the demands of the high priest Nourabad (Edwin Crossley-Mercer) that he kill his long-time friend and the woman he still loves.
Will friendship overcome ritual tradition? You’ll just have to tune in to find out.
Marc Minkowski conducts the Les Musiciens du Louvre and the Grand Avignon Opera Chorus.
Stay tuned for more of Bizet’s music after the opera as we explore the music he wrote for the melodrama L’Arlesienne. This recording of the nearly complete incidental music features Michel Plasson conducting the Orfeon Donostiarra and Orchestra national du Capitole de Toulouse with Jacques Noureddine playing the saxophone.
We’ll conclude our time together with an overlooked comic opera by Bizet entitled “Don Procopio.” If you know the story of Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale,” you’ll know this, but the music is all wonderfully youthful Bizet. The cast includes Witold Zoladkiewicz, Gabriele Kakinska, Wojoiech Parchelm, Pierre-Yves Pruvot and Olivier Heyte with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Warsaw Opera with Didier Taipain conducting.
