Bizet's The Pearl Fishers via The Met's Nightly Opera Stream (Archived Stream)

Bizet's The Pearl Fishers via The Met's Nightly Opera Stream (Archived Stream)
Wed., Jan. 6, 7:30PM via The Metropolitan Opera

In the opera world, Georges Bizet is known for one thing: Carmen. Now, Carmen is great, it’s full of hit tunes. But Bizet wrote another opera that is way less popular but which has one of Bizet’s most beautiful melodies. The opera is Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers) – a tale of two friends who fall in love with the same woman. That woman is a priestess and isn’t supposed to marry either of them. Hijinx do NOT ensue, but the moment when the two rivals pledge to remain friends is one of the opera’s most popular male duets, “Au fond du temple saint.” (Star soprano Diana Damrau sings Leïla, the virgin priestess at the center of the story. Matthew Polenzani and Mariusz Kwiecien are Nadir and Zurga, rivals for Leïla’s love who have sworn to renounce her to protect their friendship—and who get to sing that most celebrated duet.) Bizet’s opera The Pearl Fishers / Les Pêcheurs de Perles in a performance from Jan. 2016, is the free HD opera stream from The Met for Wednesday, Jan. 6.