THE PEARL DIVERS
The best known opera
by Georges Bizet is without doubt Carmen and the Pearl Divers is performed far
more seldom. The St. Petersburg Chamber Opera had a guest performance in the
Estonia Theatre in Tallinn of this opera.
The story of the opera
is rather exotic. It is situated in Ceylon and tells the love story of the
priestess of Brahma, Leïla and the pearl fisher Nadir, which in this version
ended up on a pyre. Set and costume designer was Vjatšeslav Okunev. The costumes were super exotic:
there were plenty of pearls and gold details involved. The set was far more
humble: a tree trunk and some stones, but extra effects were created by video
art (Daniil Bakalin and Mihhail Ušinin),
that alternatively showed e.g. sea shores, jungle in the night or a Hindu
temple. Quite a nice way to create variation to the set with less money spent.
The stage director was
Juri Aleksandrov and he had trusted the traditional way of directing. The
exoticism of the East was really underlined and persons acted as if they were
in a soap opera. The chorus managed, in addition to singing, to dance in an
exotic way and to gesture dramatically. Well, sometimes such a traditional
direction can be a nice experience.
Bizet’s music is very
romantic and contained great feelings. The arias in the Pearl Divers may not be
as well-known as those in Carmen, but it does contain beautiful music. All main
soloists were good singers, but I liked the most Aleksei Pašijev, who sang the role of Zurga. My liking may
have been – at least partly – caused by the fact that he was the only singer,
whose French I could recognize as French. But also Denis Zakirov as Nadir had
beautiful arias and duets. All in all a very successful evening.
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