Today, the Opernhaus Zürich presents the world première of Girl with a Pearl Earring, an opera composed by Stefan Wirth with a libretto in English by Philip Littell based on Tracy Chevalier's novel.
It is the composer's first opera.
Griet, daughter of an impoverished family in Delft, is employed in Jan Vermeer’s household as a servant girl. Forced to work hard and bullied by the Vermeer children, when cleaning the artist’s studio she is the only one who gains an insight into the mystery of the artist’s colours, light and perspectives. When Vermeer’s patron, the lecher Pieter van Ruijven, orders a painting of the maid as a portrait study, Griet starts spending more and more time alone with the artist in his studio. Until Vermeer’s wife notices the servant girl wearing her pearl earring… (reproduced from the Zurich Opera House website)The cast includes soprano Lauren Snouffer (Griet), baritone Thomas Hampson (Jan Vermeer), soprano Laura Aikin (Catharina Vermeer), soprano Liliana Nikiteanu (Maria Thins), baritone Yannick Debus (Pieter) and alto Irène Friedli (Tanneke). Peter Rundel conducts the Philharmonia Zürich. Ted Huffman directs.
