The premiere of the opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles by Georges Bizet, written to the libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré, took place on the stage of the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on the 30th of September 1863. It was the first opera by the twenty-four-year-old composer to be presented on stage.
The plot consists of a story about a competition between two friends, pearl divers Zurga and Nadir, who are both in love with the wonderful Leïla. It unfolds against exotic landscapes of the island of Ceylon (an unusual environment of exotic countries was used as an additional attraction for the public in many French operas). So, Leïla would have to make a choice, which is far more complicated: between duty and emotion. As with many romantic plots, the emotion wins: a priestess of Brahma, Leïla does not remain indifferent to the passionate confessions of Nadir and breaks the vow of purity and celibacy. An execution awaits the lovers, but they suddenly manage to escape and flee custody during a fire, which was organised by Zurga. In the key moment of the narrative, the perjury of the priestess, the echoes of two famous predecessors of Bizet can be “heard”: La Vestale by Gaspare Spontini and Norma by Vincenzo Bellini. The obsession with feelings defined the lyrical tone that prevails in the music. It is no coincidence that the most recognisable pages of Les Pêcheurs de Perles are the melancholically beautiful romance of Nadir and the duet of Nadir and Zurga from the first act, filled with memories and vows of eternal friendship.
Les Pêcheurs de Perles remained on stage for eighteen performances and after that was never performed again in the lifetime of the composer. After his death, in 1886, the opera was staged at La Scala, in Italian and with a significantly changed, “dramatized” finale. The following year, Les Pêcheurs appeared in London at the Royal Opera Covent Garden and in 1889, finally returned to the French stage. The opera was then also heard for the first time in St Petersburg: it was performed by artists of a private enterprise of Alexei Kartavov. Different versions of the score (including the score with a final trio, which was created by violinist and composer Benjamin Godard) were published and used for future productions in Europe and North America.
Interest in Les Pêcheurs was provoked, first of all, by the unfading glory of Carmen. This also happened with the Bolshoi Theatre. On the 3rd of December 1903, the premiere took place at the building of the New Theatre and in 1906 the performance was transferred to the main stage. The leading parts were performed by Antonina Nezhdanova (Leïla), Leonid Sobinov (Nadir), Alexander Gerasimenko (Zurga) and Matvey Goryainov (Nourabad). It was conducted by maestro Ulrich Avranek. After a short period of renewal of the production in the mid 1920s, conducted by Vassili Nebolsin, the opera did not return to the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre for almost a century.
On the 10th of December 2020, the premiere took place at the Chamber Stage. A new edition of the opera was chosen, created by conductor Brad Cohen after the author’s score and manuscript, found in the 1990s and kept in the National Library of France (conducted by Alexey Vereshchagin). The production team, headed by director and designer Vladislavs Nastavševs, created an ascetic and minimalistic performance, each mise-en-scene and gesture of which is important. According to the director, he did not aim at “illustrating the events but providing the audience with a chance to imagine this story, having immersed inward into themselves”.
