Opera

The Pearl Fishers

1 upcoming performance in New York

Georges Bizet’s *The Pearl Fishers* (*Les pêcheurs de perles*) is set in coastal Ceylon, where two friends swear loyalty as a shared love tests their bond. The opera’s plot moves in clean, ritual-like turns: friendship, desire, duty, and the price of choosing one over the others. In New York, it has appeared on major stages—including the Metropolitan Opera—often returning as a case study in how a familiar “exotic” setting framed European ideas about the wider world. Its best-known duet endures, even when the drama feels slender.