Introduction

This episode of Opera for Everyone features Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles - The Pearl Fishers - which debuted in Paris at the Théâtre Lyrique, on September 30, 1863. It's an opera in three acts with a French libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. The opera is a story of how two men's vow of eternal friendship is threatened by their love for the same woman, whose own dilemma is the conflict between secular love and her sacred oath as a priestess. The friendship duet "Au fond du temple saint", generally known as "The Pearl Fishers Duet," is one of the best-known numbers in Western opera.