The Pearl Fishers

The Bizet classic as you’ve never seen it.

A brand new staging of Bizet’s classic makes its world premiere in Aotearoa.

An early masterpiece by the composer of Carmen, The Pearl Fishers is an opera stunning in its brilliance, clarity and undeniable beauty. Performed on the New Zealand Opera stage for the first time since 2002, our 2026 season promises Bizet’s gorgeous work as you’ve never seen it before.

With a cast boasting some of the New Zealand’s finest internationally based opera talent – with all of our principal cast returning to Aotearoa for this season – accompanied by the unfailingly outstanding voices of the Freemasons Foundation New Zealand Opera Chorus and the world-class Auckland Philharmonia and Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, this is as essential as opera gets.

Produced by New Zealand Opera in partnership with State Opera South Australia, in an all-new production by acclaimed Australian director Stephen Barlow, this is your opportunity to see a gem of the opera canon in a new light – bright, beautiful and unmistakably ‘ours’.