Les pêcheurs de perles

The scene is a desolate seashore, with the ruins of a Hindu temple in the background. A chorus of pearl fishermen sing of the dangerous tasks that lie ahead ("Sur la grève en feu"), and perform ritual dances to drive away evil spirits. They then elect one of their number, Zurga, as their leader, or "king". Nadir enters, and is hailed by Zurga as a long-lost friend. Left alone, the pair reminisce about their past in the city of Kandy, where their friendship was nearly destroyed by their mutual love of a young priestess whose beauty they had glimpsed briefly. They had each renounced their love for this stranger and had sworn to remain true to each other. Now, reunited, they affirm once again that they will be faithful until death ("Au fond du temple saint").

A boat draws up on the beach bearing the veiled figure of Leila, the virgin priestess whose prayers are required to ensure the safety of the fishermen. Although neither Nadir nor Zurga recognises her, she is the woman from Kandy with whom both had been in love. As Zurga is explaining her duties, she recognises Nadir, but she says nothing and shortly afterwards is led up to the temple by the high priest Nourabad. Zurga and the fishermen go down to the sea, leaving Nadir alone. In a troubled soliloquy before he sleeps he recalls how, in Kandy, he had broken his vows to Zurga and pursued his love for the veiled woman ("Je crois entendre encore"). It was the rumour that she might be found in this place that brought him here. Alone in the temple, Leila prays and sings. Nadir wakes and, recognising the voice of his long-desired lover, traces it to the temple. Leila briefly draws her veil aside, he sees it is she and the pair declare their renewed passion. On the beach, the fishermen plead with her to continue protecting them, but she tells Nadir she will sing for him alone ("O Dieu Brahma").

In the temple with Nourabad, Leila expresses fear at being left alone, but Nourabad exhorts her to be brave and to fulfil her vows to Brahma on pain of her own death. She tells him of the courage she once displayed when, as a child, she had hidden a fugitive from his enemies and refused to give him up even when threatened with death ("J'étais encore enfant"). The fugitive had rewarded her with a necklace that he asked her always to wear. She had kept this promise, as she would her vows. On the priest's departure, Leila quietly muses on the former times when she and Nadir would meet together secretly ("Comme autrefois dans la nuit sombre"). Nadir then enters; in her fear of Nourabad's threats Leila begs him to leave, but he remains and the two declare their love in a passionate duet ("Léïla! Léïla!...Dieu puissant, le voilà!"). He goes, promising to return next night, but as he leaves he is captured by the fishermen and brought back to the temple. Zurga, as the fishermen's leader, at first resists the fishermen's calls for Nadir's execution and advocates mercy. However, after Nourabad removes Leila's veil, Zurga recognises her as his former love; consumed by jealousy and rage, he orders that both Nadir and Leila be put to death. A violent storm erupts, as the fishermen unite in singing a hymn to Brahma ("Brahma divin Brahma!").

In his tent on the beach, Zurga notes that the storm has abated, as has his rage; he now feels remorse for his anger towards Nadir ("L'orage s'est calmé"). Leila is brought in; Zurga is captivated by her beauty as he listens to her pleas for Nadir's life, but his jealousy is rekindled. He confesses his love for her, but refuses mercy ("Je suis jaloux"). Nourabad and some of the fishermen enter to report that the funeral pyre is ready. As Leila is taken away, Zurga observes her giving one of the fishermen her necklace, asking for its return to her mother. With a shout, Zurga rushes out after the group and seizes the necklace.

Outside the temple, Nadir waits beside the funeral pyre as the crowd, singing and dancing, anticipates the dawn and the coming double execution ("Dès que le soleil"). He is joined by Leila; resigned now to their deaths, the pair sing of how their souls will soon be united in heaven. A glow appears in the sky, and Zurga rushes in to report that the fishermen's camp is ablaze. As the men hurry away to save their homes, Zurga frees Leila and Nadir. He returns the necklace to Leila, and reveals that he is the man she saved when she was a child. He recognises now that his love for her is in vain, and tells her and Nadir to flee. As the couple depart, singing of the life of love that awaits them, Zurga is left alone, to await the fishermen's return ("Plus de crainte...Rêves d'amour, adieu!").

(In the revised version of the ending introduced after the opera's 1886 revival, Nourabad witnesses Zurga's freeing of the prisoners and denounces him to the fishermen, one of whom stabs Zurga to death as the last notes sound of Leila and Nadir's farewell song. In some variations Zurga meets his death in other ways, and his body is consigned to the pyre.)

The Théâtre Lyrique (centre right), Paris, where Les pêcheurs de perles received its first performance on 30 September 1863

The premiere, originally planned for 14 September 1863, was postponed to the 30th because of the illness of the soprano lead, Léontine de Maësen. The first-night audience at the Théâtre Lyrique received the work well, and called for Bizet at the conclusion. The writer Louis Gallet, who later would provide several librettos for Bizet, described the composer on this occasion as "a little dazed ... a forest of thick curly hair above a round, still rather childish face, enlivened by the quick brown eyes..."[10] The audience's appreciation was not reflected in the majority of the press reviews, which generally castigated both the work and what they considered Bizet's lack of modesty in appearing on stage. Gustave Bertrand in Le Ménestrel wrote that "this sort of exhibition is admissible only for a most extraordinary success, and even then we prefer to have the composer dragged on in spite of himself, or at least pretending to be". Another critic surmised that the calls for the composer had been orchestrated by a "claque" of Bizet's friends, strategically distributed.[19]

Of the opera itself, Benjamin Jouvin of Le Figaro wrote: "There were neither fishermen in the libretto nor pearls in the music". He considered that on every page the score displayed "the bias of the school to which [Bizet] belongs, that of Richard Wagner".[19] Bertrand compared the work unfavourably with those of contemporary French composers such as Charles Gounod and Félicien David. "Nevertheless", he wrote, "there is a talent floating in the midst of all these regrettable imitations".[19] Hector Berlioz was a voice apart in the general critical hostility; his review of the work in Journal des Débats praised the music's originality and subtlety: "The score of Les pêcheurs de perles does M. Bizet the greatest honour", he wrote.[10] Among Bizet's contemporaries, the dramatist Ludovic Halévy wrote that this early work announced Bizet as a composer of quality: "I persist in finding in [the score] the rarest virtues".[19] The youthful composer Émile Paladilhe told his father that the opera was superior to anything that the established French opera composers of the day, such as Auber and Thomas, were capable of producing.[10]

In its initial run Les pêcheurs de perles ran for 18 performances, alternating with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. It closed on 23 November 1863, and although it brought the theatre little financial success, Bizet had won admiration from his peers. Carvalho was satisfied enough to ask Bizet to quickly finish Ivan IV, with a view to its early production at the Théâtre Lyrique. This idea eventually came to nothing; Ivan IV remained unperformed until 1946.[10][19]

After its opening run, Les pêcheurs was not performed again until 11 years after Bizet's death when, on 20 March 1886, it was presented in Italian at La Scala, Milan. After this it received regular stagings in European cities, often with the Italian version of the libretto.[8] These revivals, which possibly reflected the growing success of Carmen, were followed by the publication of several versions of the music that incorporated significant differences from Bizet's original.[9] In particular the finale was altered, to provide a more dramatic ending—"a grand Meyerbeerian holocaust" according to Dean.[20] This revised conclusion included a trio composed by Benjamin Godard. These corrupted scores remained the basis of productions for nearly a century.[20][21]

A scene from the 1916 production at the New York Met

The opera received its British premiere on 22 April 1887, at London's Covent Garden, under the title Leila. The part of Nadir was sung by Paul Lhérie, the original Don José in the 1875 Carmen.[9] Press reactions were muted; The Times's music critic found much of the music incompatible with the exotic setting—the hymn to Brahma was, he suggested, reminiscent of a Lutheran chorale.[22] The Observer's reporter found "no trace of genuine inspiration", and drew unfavourable comparisons with Carmen.[23] When Covent Garden repeated the production in May 1889 the Princess of Wales and other members of the British royal family were present.[24] The Manchester Guardian's correspondent praised the singers but found that the work "becomes weaker and weaker as it goes on".[25]

Les pêcheurs returned to Paris on 20 April 1889, when it was performed—in Italian—at the Théâtre de la Gaîté. Despite a distinguished cast—Emma Calvé, Jean-Alexandre Talazac and Lhérie, now a baritone, in the role of Zurga—critical reviews were no more enthusiastic than those which had greeted the original performances. Le Ménestrel excused Bizet on account of his youth,[26] while The Manchester Guardian's report summed up the Parisian view of the work as "almost entirely lacking in ... boldness & originality".[27] On 24 April 1893 Carvalho revived the work, in French, at the Opéra-Comique, its first performance at what would later become its regular home.[9]

Productions continued to proliferate in Europe, and further afield; on 25 August 1893 the opera received its American premiere in Philadelphia.[8] Two-and-a-half years later, on 11 January 1896, the first two acts were performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera (the "Met"), as part of a programme that included Jules Massenet's one-act opera La Navarraise. The cast was led by Calvé and the Italian baritone Mario Ancona.[28]

The Met's first complete staging of the opera came 20 years later, on 13 November 1916, when a star cast that included Enrico Caruso, Frieda Hempel and Giuseppe De Luca gave three performances. According to W. H. Chase in the Evening Sun, the act 1 duet "brought down the house in a superb blending of the two men's voices"; later, in "Je crois entendre encore", Caruso "did some of the most artistic singing in plaintive minor". In The Sun, W. J. Henderson, praised Hempel for her "ravishing upper tones", Da Luca was "a master of the delicate finish", and the bass Léon Rothier, in the small part of Nourabad, "filled Bizet's requirements perfectly".[28]

In the years after the First World War the work lost popularity with opera-house directors, and it was seen less frequently.[8][21] The Met did not repeat its 1916 production, though individual numbers from the work—most frequently the famous duet and Leila's "Comme autrefois"—were regularly sung at the Met's concert evenings.[28] The 1930s saw a return of interest in the opera, with productions in new venues including Nuremberg and the Berlin State Opera.[29] Some revivals were unconventional: one German production used a rewritten libretto based on a revised storyline in which Leila, transformed into a defiant Carmen-like heroine, commits suicide at the end of the final scene.[30] Paris's Opéra-Comique staged a more traditional production in 1932, and again in 1938, Bizet's centenary year.[31] From that time onward it has remained in the Opéra-Comique repertory.[32]

After the Second World War, although the opera was shunned by Covent Garden, the Sadler's Wells company presented it in March 1954.[33] The Times announced this production as the first known use in Britain of the opera's English libretto.[34] The stage designs for this production, which was directed by Basil Coleman, were by John Piper.[35]

In the early 1970s, Arthur Hammond orchestrated the sections of the neglected 1863 vocal score that had been cut out from the post-1886 scores.[36] This led to a production in 1973, by Welsh National Opera, of a version close to Bizet's original, without Godard's trio and Zurga's violent death—the first modern performance to incorporate the original ending.[9][21]

The Sadler's Wells production was revived several times, but it was not until September 1987 that the company, by then transformed into English National Opera, replaced it with a new staging directed by Philip Prowse.[37] The Guardian's report on this production mentioned that the "Pearl Fishers Duet" had recently topped the list in a poll of the public's "best tunes", and described the opera as "one of the most sweetly tuneful in the French repertory". This production "...[brought] out its freshness, never letting it become sugary".[38] Although the run was a sell-out, ENO's managing director Peter Jonas disliked the production, and refused to revive it.[39] It did not reappear in ENO's repertory until 1994, after Jonas's departure.[40]

The Vienna Volksoper, which staged Les pêcheurs de perles in 1994, the city's first production of the opera

In the latter years of the 20th century the opera was a regular feature in many European cities, and was still breaking new ground; in 1990 it made its debut at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava.[8] Vienna saw it for the first time in 1994, at the Vienna Volksoper, in what John Rockwell in the New York Times described as "an awkwardly updated production", though well performed.[41] The opera had not so far proved particularly popular in the United States, where since the Met premiere of 1916, performances had been rare compared with Europe. Lyric Opera of Chicago staged it in 1966, but waited until 1998 before reviving it.[21] In 1980 the New York City Opera mounted a production based on the 1863 edition, and staged it again in 1983 and 1986. Reviewing the 1986 production, Henahan wrote that despite the inept libretto the work was saved by the "melodic suppleness and warmth" of Bizet's score.[15]

San Diego Opera first staged the work in 1993, but it was this company's 2004 production, designed by Zandra Rhodes, that generated new levels of enthusiasm for the opera throughout the United States. In the following few years this production was shown in seven other U.S. opera houses; in October 2008 James C. Whitson, in Opera News, reported that worldwide, "between 2007 and 2009, half of all major production of the piece have been or will be ... in the U.S.".[21] San Diego's director, Ian Campbell, suggested that his company's 2004 production was "created at a time when it seemed many U.S. opera companies were looking for a not-too-expensive production with melody, and a little off the beaten track .... [Our] Les pêcheurs de perles fitted the bill.[21]

In January 2008 the opera received its first performance in Sri Lanka, the land of its setting. The conductor, Benjamin Levy, directed a large group of singers and musicians, mostly young and local.[42] In October 2010, after an interval of more than 120 years, the opera was reintroduced to London's Royal Opera House. Two concert performances were given using a new edition of the score, prepared by Brad Cohen after the discovery in the Bibliothèque nationale de France of Bizet's 1863 conducting score.[36] Commenting on this performance in The Daily Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen drew attention to the "musing intimacy and quiet dignity" with which the duet was sung, as compared with more traditional macho renderings.[43]

The Metropolitan New York presented a new production of the work in 2016, the first time the opera had been performed there for nearly a hundred years.[44]