The Pearl Fishers

On Saturday February 28, Florida Grand Opera opened their new production of George Bizet's opera "Les pecheurs de perles" which is also known as "The Pearl Fishers" in English.

This opera, which had its premiere in France in 1863 when the composer was only 25, helped establish Bizet in the Parisian musical world and ten years later, he would write the opera "Carmen" for which he is best remembered today.

The plot of "The Pearl Fishers" concerns the chief of a pearl fishing village in Ceylon, today known as Sri Lanka, his hunter best friend and the priestess they are both in love with.

The libretto by Eugene Cormon and Michel Carre is weak and has been disparaged by everyone including the authors themselves. But one goes to see this opera for Bizet's magnificent music and not its plot. Cormon commented later that had they been aware of Bizet's quality as a composer, they would have tried harder.

On the other hand, due to the simple nature of the storyline, this opera is a great beginner opera because it is easy to follow the plot of the opera, which is sung in French, with or without the English supertitles that FGO presents with every opera.

Bizet's music for "The Pearl Fishers" is truly magnificent. The Act One duet for tenor and baritone, "Au fond du temple saint" is one of the best known duets in the operatic repertoire and gentlemen have been singing it in concert on a regular basis for the past 150 years or more.

The tenor aria "Je crois entendre encore," also from Act One, is a hauntingly beautiful piece that requires a strong technical singer to perform well. The Act Two aria for soprano, "Comme autrefois," requires both dramatic intensity and a brilliant and sparkling upper register. Musically, "The Pearl Fishers" is up there with the other great operas even if it falls short dramatically.

For this production, Florida Grand Opera has cast Sydney Mancasola in the role of Leila, the priestess. Mancasola is brilliant. Her voice sparkles and shimmers throughout her performance and is a thing of glory and beauty. During part of the role, she must sing with her face covered by a veil, which from a dramatic standpoint is a very difficult thing to do.

Mancasola has no problem conveying emotion with just her voice and body and she takes the framework of her character that is provided by the libretto and turns her into a real feeling and loving woman using only the beauty and expressiveness of her voice. Soprano Emily Birsan will be taking over the role of Leila for the March 7, 12 and 14 performances.

The tenor role of Nadir was sung by Philippe Talbot. Talbot has a lovely light "French Tenor" voice that navigates the high tessitura of this role beautifully. His rendition of "Je crois entendre encore" was a beautiful as it gets. While his voice is somewhat on the small side and he occasionally was overwhelmed by other singers during the ensemble numbers, it is more than made up for by the sheer beauty of tone and clarity of high notes. Talbot's voice is, hands down, one of the most beautiful tenor voices you will ever hear.

Baritone Cory McKern has a fine voice with a nice weight to it and his performance as Zurga was beautifully sung. His duet in Act One with Talbot was beautifully and expertly sung. His Act Three aria, "L'orage est calme" was delivered with a nice dramatic intensity. Unfortunately, the role itself is mostly unmemorable but McKern took his one big aria and made the most of it.

Young artists Daniel Bates and Will Hughes took over the roles of Nadir and Zurga respectively for the March 1st performance and will sing the roles again in the performance on the 6th. Bates' voice is heavier than that of Talbot's and has a nice color to it. Hughes has a beautiful quality to his baritone voice that is only going to increase as he continues his career. Both young artists sang admirably in their first performance.

The direction by A. Scott Parry is, unfortunately, uninspired. Perhaps he was hampered by the lack of plot. The actors seem to have been instructed to cross the stage as much as possible while the chorus was told to just stand in one spot and move as little as possible. There is drama to be found in "The Pearl Fishers" but it seemed to elude Parry.

The set, designed by J. Michael Wingfield for Sarasota opera, is a thing of beauty and color and is evocative of Sri Lanka. The costumes by Howard Tsvi Kaplan are colorful and beautiful.

Conductor Anthony Barrese handled the orchestra beautifully and was visibly communicating with the singers on stage. His conducting was a joy to watch.

While not being the strongest on plot, "The Pearl Fishers" is worth seeing for the performances of Mancasola and Talbot alone.

"The Pearl Fishers Runs through March 7 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, FL 33132 and Mar. 12 and 14 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 Southwest 5th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312. For tickets and information, call 800-741-1010 or visit FGO.org.