BY ANGUS MCPHERSON
Bizet’s ‘The Pearlfishers’
Opera Australia
Sydney Opera House, 15 January
Australian director Michael Gow’s new production of Bizet’s ‘The Pearlfishers’ sets the action in colonial Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the 1860s, around the time the opera was composed. Cormon and Carré’s libretto was originally set in ancient Mexico and there is an arbitrariness to their choice of location: it simply needed to be beautiful and sufficiently removed from European experience to be exotic. Gow’s production, however, nails the action down to a specific time and place, exploring the cultural tensions and dissonances of colonialism by reimagining the male leads as European.
Zurga, sung by baritone José Carbó, is a pearl dealer, a Victorian gentleman wilted by sun and alcohol, his black coat unsuitable for the tropics (his only concession to the weather is a parasol). Nadir is a game hunter, sung by Slovakian tenor Pavol Breslik. The villain, Nourabad, sung by Daniel Sumegi, has been changed from a Brahmin priest to a racketeer who travels around the country exploiting the locals’ beliefs for profit, his powerful, resonant bass embodying his authority and sway over both locals and colonists. His meal ticket (and the object of Zurga and Nadir’s romantic rivalry) is the priestess Léïla, sung by Russian soprano Ekaterina Siurina.
Gow’s recasting of the male roles creates interesting power dynamics: Zurga’s election by the pearl fishers as ‘supreme leader’ becomes both comical and sinister – with no athletic prowess as a fisher, his throne is a leather armchair on the sea shore.
Robert Kemp’s design is beautiful and nuanced, without being overly idealised. The opening set features a venerable Hindu shrine (with what appear to be Mexican cacti scrawled on the walls), in front of a sparkling, preternaturally blue sea. The third act is set in Zurga’s office, a decaying, weather-damaged faux-classical building inspired by the ‘Doric House’, a bungalow built by the British Governor in Ceylon in the early 1800s for the supervision of pearl fishing operations, but which soon fell to ruin and neglect. In Kemp’s set, the paint is stripping off the walls, wooden slats are bent, a pile of broken furniture sits in the corner and empty liquor bottles are strewn around.
The Sri Lankan inspired costumes are saturated in reds and oranges, playing off Matt Scott’s sun-and-fire lighting design. The brightness contrasts with the darker (and slightly rumpled, in Zurga’s case) Victorian dress of the Europeans.
The famous duet between Zurga and Nadir, ‘Au fond du temple saint’ is, of course, a highlight, as is Breslik’s mournful aria ‘Je crois entendre encore’, but it is Ekaterina Siurina’s duet with Carbó in Act III that makes the show. Siurina’s Léïla is graceful but not submissive, her voice full and virtuosic. In her showdown with Zurga she undergoes a transformation. She enters begging for Nadir’s life, but as she sees Zurga’s weakness, vacillation and jealous anger, she pushes back, and though she and Nadir are still to die, she seems to emerge the victor. Carbó is a complex and three-dimensional Zurga, his mellow baritone pushing back against the force of Léïla’s anger.
The Opera Australia chorus distinguishes itself in the opening ‘Sur la grève en feu’ chorus and in ‘des que le soleil’ in the third act, with Guillaume Tourniaire conducting a robust Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra.
It is always exciting to see a new Australian production, and Gow’s adaption of ‘The Pearlfishers’ manages to smooth over some of the narrative problems with the original libretto. His re-imagining of the male leads as European colonists adds a richness to the characters, particularly Zurga, his vision emphasising psychological drama over exotic spectacle.
Image: Keith Saunders.
