The Pearl Fishers

[Luindriel]

Love it! Someone on metafilter just posted links to you here and on myspace.

Who are the singers here?

[OperaInFocus]

Thanks! The singers are Robert Merrill and Jussi Björling.

[FrancisRidley]

This is the same music that Bill Hunter's character played the night before they 'went over the top' in the movie Gallipoli. It sends shivers up my spine.

[flower150]

I remember that! I didn't know what it was called. It made me weep that something so beautiful was being played just before the horror of the battle started

[FrancisRidley]

I wonder if the reason Sydney AU is producing this show is because Australians so readily connect with that gramaphone scene? I think the Australian psyche is very sensitive to the rememberance of being sent to 'slaughter' in futile battles at the whim of British Generals.

[FrancisRidley]

Sorry flower150, that was insensitive of me. I didn't realise you were British until I went to your home page. I'm British too by virtue of the fact that my parents were both British, and have citizenship in the UK. But I am still able to say what the Aussies collectively felt about serving under the British during the two great wars. My parents and their siblings were all in the war. War is ugly but ironically it is also sometimes strangely romantic for some reason.

[flower150]

No need to be worried about sensitivity. Some of the English officers were absolutely bloody useless. Never been at the pointy end and convinced that it was all a 'great game'and that although Johhny Turk was a good fighter, Tommy Atkins would see him off because he was British, and you can't be better than that!

[FrancisRidley]

If you go to the video entitled, gallipoli 1 , the 'gramaphone scene' is at the 4:53 minute mark. The channel is zaohad1.

[ap15ap15]

pearl fishers, geddit!!

[supercinema4me]

Wow, cool!

...but why are Nadir and Zurga on a boat, exactly?

[cardigan51]

Straight to the point..

[moderann]

Awesome!