Les Pêcheurs de Perles

Beloved worldwide for his ever-popular Carmen, Georges Bizet first achieved popular success with this entrancing opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers), which tells the story of a forbidden love within a very superstitious seaside village. Aside from its famous tenor-baritone duet, “Au fond du temple saint,” the work was unknown to Met audiences for a century, until a new production by Penny Woolcock returned it to the repertory in 2015. During the 2018–19 season, Emmanuel Villaume took to podium to conduct the first revival of Woolcock’s staging, which starred a trio of dynamic young artists in the principal roles. In this radio broadcast, tenor Javier Camarena and baritone Alexander Birch Elliot appear as the lifelong friends Nadir and Zurga, opposite soprano Pretty Yende as the spellbinding priestess who comes between them. The Met Orchestra and Chorus deliver a delightfully energetic performance, which bursts to life with the many colors of the work’s Southeast Asian setting.