NZ Opera’s The Pearl Fishers is set in the modern world at an upscale resort called The White Pearl. The guests are all from Pêcheur & Perle, a luxury jewellery company and they’ve gathered to choose a new leader.
It’s all very glamorous but something feels a little off. With slavish devotion, the delegates vote to make Zurga (Samuel Dundas) their leader and ‘master’. It doesn’t take long to realise this outfit is more of a cult than a business. It becomes even more curious when they start to sing about an enigmatic woman who is the face of the brand. Turns out she’s a songstress with allure, but they seem to idolise her like some latter-day Madonna, the saintly one, not the pop star.
Before ‘she’ gets there, however, Nadir (Filipe Manu), an old suitor of the singer and a former colleague of Zurga enters the heavily guarded property. There’s been some bad blood between the two men, but whatever enmity they felt vanishes as they sing adoringly about the woman. This aria, Au fond du temple saint, is one of the loveliest male duets in the opera world, so you know this woman is something special.
Finally, she arrives. Her name is Léïla (Madison Nonoa), and she’s a show girl, dressed head to toe in lavish couture. Everyone simply gushes over this saintly vision in turquoise.
This is where it starts to get a little weird. Zurga and the crowd insist she has to give up any freedom, sexuality, or sense of self. It’s not exactly clear why, but perhaps a virgin goes with the purity of the brand.
She agrees to the conditions and is made aware, quite bluntly, that if she wavers, the adoring crowd will make sure she is killed. It seems an odd way to treat a lady they all venerate but adoration can be fickle.
If Léïla had any doubt as to the veracity of the threats, a gun is pointed at her head by Nourabad (Anthony Robin Schneider), the company’s head of security who’s really just a morally rigid thug dressed in a black designer suit.
It’s not all bad, though, as Léïla is offered a giant pearl as compensation for being chaste.
Of course, this being opera, there’s no way she could live up to these impossible standards. Who could? When she once again encounters Nadir, a male siren with a golden voice and songs of love, any intention to follow the rules, melts away.
They hook up and this breach of decorum brings swift condemnation. Zurga, in love with Léïla himself, is consumed with jealousy and the spiteful Nourabad gives full vent to his prudishness. The two of them, goaded on by the crowd, sentence the lovers to death.
Just how their PR department will handle this is unclear, but Nadir is beaten and imprisoned while Léïla pleads for mercy and tells Zurga she is prepared to sacrifice herself for the man she loves.
He is unmoved until he discovers Léïla is the woman who sheltered him from an angry and murderous mob when he was just a boy. This discovery dissolves his implacable anger and jealousy.
Unfortunately, by now The White Pearl is turning into the spa from hell. The following morning, the lovers are restrained on treatment chairs and a seemingly giddy nurse preps them for execution and picks up the largest syringe ever made.
Suddenly, a fire breaks out, everyone flees, and Zurga, now an arsonist, frees the lovers and they depart. In the final moments Nourabad raises a gun and points it at a heartbroken Zurga.
It is a suitably dramatic ending to what has been a very intense story. It’s all fabulously melodramatic yet beautifully tender.
The opera is superbly orchestrated. The principal cast sing so beautifully and there is undeniable chemistry between Nonoa and Manu as the romantic leads. Manu’s delivery of Je crois entendre encore is heartbreakingly beautiful and Nonoa was equally striking in Comme autrefois. Dundas is a very good singer – he and Manu are superb in the aforementioned Au fond du temple saint – and Schneider has the loveliest bass voice I have heard.
This version of The Pearl Fishers is an adaptation of the original opera by Brad Cohen, the General Director of NZ Opera. What he has managed to do is create a bold and successful reimagining of the score and libretto to suit our modern world.
Under the baton of Benjamin Bayl, the Auckland Philharmonia filled the theatre with Bizet’s gorgeous score with its usual finesse and the New Zealand Opera Chorus to give a spectacular performance. The set and costumes by Yannis Thavoris and were sumptuous, and Jake Wiltshire’s lighting design was flawless. This is a production that Director Stephan Barlow and assistant director Brock Roberts should be proud of and one that shouldn’t be missed.
Photo credit – Andi Crown
NZ Opera’s new production of The Pearl Fishers by Bizet, plays at Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Auckland, 23-27 September with Auckland Philharmonia, and at Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch, 14-18 October with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
