Les Pêcheurs de perles

How could Bizet compose Les Pêcheurs de perles without ever having left Paris? Mirabelle Ordinaire, who has been part of the New York Met’s team of stage directors for several years, celebrates this prodigious score by examining the mystery that surrounds the creative act itself.

The young Bizet was only 25 years old and had never ventured beyond the Neuvième arrondissement of Paris when he composed his opera. In this orientalist reverie, the apartment of the composer overlooks the Opéra Garnier then under construction. Invited into the creative intimacy of the poet, we witness the interlacing of these two geneses: the arcades of the Opera become those of a Hindu palace, the water drained for the foundations of the edifice pours into the Indian Ocean, and transports us to Ceylon where Bizet, as Zurga, meets the enchanting Leila.

^{for the performance on Wednesday 19th March} 

Music Georges Bizet
Libretto Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon

Musical director Pierre Dumoussaud
Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne 
Chœur de l’Opéra de Dijon

Stage director Mirabelle Ordinaire
Scenography Philippine Ordinaire 
Lighting Nathalie Perrier 
Costumes Françoise Raybaud
Choregraphy Sandrine Chapuis
Video Étienne Guiol
Staging assistant Maud Morillon

Leïla Hélène Carpentier
Nadir Julien Dran
Zurga Philippe-Nicolas Martin 
Nourabad Nathanaël Tavernier 
With 3 acrobats

New production of the Opéra de Dijon
Coproduction Opéra de Toulon
Stage sets and costumes produced by the workshops of the Opéra de Dijon

^{Illustration © Gilles Aillaud}