(c) Antoni Bofill Gran Teatre del Liceu: Les pêcheurs de perles (concert version)
Barcelona, Gran Teatre del Liceu — Sala Principal
About the Event
Set against the opulent backdrop of Gran Teatre del Liceu, Les pêcheurs de perles promises an evening of enchanting music and deeply intertwined human emotions.
Les pêcheurs de perles—an early jewel by Georges Bizet—is one of those creations in which romantic exoticism is transformed into a metaphor for desire, friendship, and human fragility. On this occasion, Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre restore the score to its most lyrical and contemplative profile.
Minkowski, a master at repositioning the French repertoire in its true essence, unfolds a kaleidoscopic and transparent reading, made of colours that breathe, of breaths that become phrasing, of an orchestral pulse that suggests both the calm of the waters and the vertigo of buried passions. His way of making music—precise, vivid, always attentive to the musical word—turns this version into an exploration of the intangible that Bizet knew how to capture: the moment when love and duty, oath and desire, shatter one another like waves against the rock.
This emotional landscape comes to life thanks to a leading trio of unusual intensity. Pene Pati, with his natural elegance and luminous timbre, embodies Nadir, singing from the soul with that blend of vulnerability and ardour that turns “Je crois entendre encore” into one of the most ethereal declarations of love in the repertoire. Elsa Dreisig, with her flexible and radiant vocality, shapes a Leïla full of inner truth, a priestess divided between faith and the heart, capable of uniting delicacy and resolve within the same line. Beside her, Florian Sempey brings to Zurga a wounded nobility, a human intensity that makes the final conflict not a mere dramatic twist, but an act of profound compassion.
In the hands of these artists, Les pêcheurs de perles emerges as a meditation on memory and destiny: a song to passions born in silence and yet capable of setting a world alight. Between the orchestral refinement of Marc Minkowski and the inner strength of the leading trio, the Liceu recovers a jewel of the repertoire filled with breath and mystery. A musical pearl that, once found, continues to shine beneath the shadows of the sea.
Program
- Georges Bizet – Les pêcheurs de perles
Cast / Production
Nadir
Pene Pati
Zurga
Florian Sempey
Léïla
Elsa Benoit
Nourabad
Edwin Crossley‐Mercer
Artists
| Conductor: | Marc Minkowski One of today's most successful and acclaimed conductors of the Baroque and Classical repertoire, Frenchman Marc Minkowski took up the baton at a very early age. Only 19 when he founded the Baroque ensemble 'Les Musiciens du Louvre' with which he is most closely associated, Minkowski championed little‐known and rarely performed music of the French Baroque before diversifying his repertoire to include works from the 18th and 19th Centuries. Particularly associated with opera and vocal music, he is a regular guest conductor at the world's greatest opera houses, where he often collaborates closely with leading stage directors to create unified works of music theatre. He also tours widely with Les Musiciens du Louvre, and is a frequent guest with orchestras around the globe. |
|---|---|
| Choir: | Palau de la Música Catalana Chamber Choir |
| Conductor: | Xavier Puig |
| Orchestra: | Les Musiciens du Louvre |
| Conductor: | Júlia Sesé |
Address
Gran Teatre del Liceu, La Rambla, 51‐59, Barcelona, Spain — Google Maps
