Die Perlenfischer

Trailer

Impressions

Sun, 22/01

06.00 pm-08.10 pm, Reithalle

one interval

Prices F, Subscription Series 92

Sold out

Opera

»Les Pêcheurs de Perles«

Music by Georges Bizet
Libretto by Michel Florentin Carré and Eugène Cormon

First Munich performance of the reconstructed original version by Hugh Macdonald January 18, 2017

In French with German surtitles
Concert performance

Age recommendation: 15 years and above

Zurga, the newly chosen leader of the pearl fishers in Ceylon, and his childhood friend Nadir, who has lived in self-imposed exile for a long time, meet each other again after many years. Both men were once in love with the same woman. However, in order not to endanger their friendship, they swore to each other to give up their love of the young priestess Leïla for ever. Shortly after the two friends have renewed their vow, however, Nadir recognises a veiled virgin who is praying for a calm sea in the temple as his childhood sweetheart Leïla. Feelings that he had believed were extinguished flare up in him again. When the couple are then discovered trying to flee together by the angry pearl fishers, the fishermen, led by the unbending High Priest Nourabad, call for the death of the two sacrilegious lovers – until Zurga intervenes in the planned execution.

The first Paris performance of Georges Bizet's first full-length opera »Die Perlenfischer« in 1863 was apparently not a great success and the work has remained a rarity of the opera repertoire ever since. In the absence of the autograph score, which is privately owned, the original instrumental version of the work is still inaccessible. It was only in 2014 that the musicologist Hugh Macdonald prepared a reconstructed version on the basis of the surviving violin conducting score which so far comes closest to the original version. The work, which was created by the composer as a sequence of a total of 16 interleaving musical numbers, is largely defined by the exotic subject matter of the text supplied. This is matched musically by a shimmering, lyrically expressive score which, with wide-ranging development arcs and a clear focus on the conflict between the four protagonists in the piece, and with the heavily involved chorus, charts a fascinating psychological drama which also promises to be a melodiously thrilling opera experience even in the concert version!