Despite a good reception by the public, press reactions to the work were generally hostile and dismissive, although other composers, notably Hector Berlioz, found considerable merit in the music.

Commentators describe the quality of the music as uneven and at times unoriginal, but acknowledge the opera as a work of promise in which Bizet's gifts for melody and evocative instrumentation are clearly evident.

It was Bizet's winning entry in a competition organised by the celebrated composer Jacques Offenbach, and gained him a cash award, a gold medal, and a performance of the prize work at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens.

[1] In 1857 Bizet was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome, and as a result spent most of the following three years in Italy, where he wrote Don Procopio, a short opera buffa in the style of Donizetti.

Carvalho had been offered an annual grant of 100,000 francs by the retiring Minister of Fine Arts, Count Walewski, on condition that each year he stage a new three-act opera from a recent Prix de Rome winner.

Carvalho had a high opinion of Bizet's abilities, and offered him the libretto of Les pêcheurs de perles, an exotic story by Carré and Eugène Cormon set on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

A chorus of pearl fishermen sing of the dangerous tasks that lie ahead ("Sur la grève en feu"), and perform ritual dances to drive away evil spirits.

In a troubled soliloquy before he sleeps he recalls how, in Kandy, he had broken his vows to Zurga and pursued his love for the veiled woman ("Je crois entendre encore").

The weak plot, as Bizet's biographer Winton Dean observes, turns on the unlikely coincidence regarding Leila's necklace, and no real effort is made in the text to bring any of the characters to life: "They are the regulation sopranos, tenors, etc., with their faces blacked".

[14] Because he did not receive Carvalho's commission until April 1863, with the projected opening night set for mid-September, Bizet composed quickly with, Curtiss says, "a tenacity and concentration quite foreign to him in his Roman days".

Ivan IV provided music for three numbers in Les pêcheurs de perles: the prelude; part of Zurga's "Une fille inconnue"; and the third act duet "O lumière sainte".

[10] The libretto was changed frequently during the creation process, even when the work had reached the rehearsal stage; the chorus "L'ombre descend" was added at Bizet's request, and other numbers were shortened or removed.

Gustave Bertrand in Le Ménestrel wrote that "this sort of exhibition is admissible only for a most extraordinary success, and even then we prefer to have the composer dragged on in spite of himself, or at least pretending to be".

[19] Hector Berlioz was a voice apart in the general critical hostility; his review of the work in Journal des Débats praised the music's originality and subtlety: "The score of Les pêcheurs de perles does M. Bizet the greatest honour", he wrote.

Le Ménestrel excused Bizet on account of his youth,[26] while The Manchester Guardian's report summed up the Parisian view of the work as "almost entirely lacking in ... boldness & originality".

[28] The Met's first complete staging of the opera came 20 years later, on 13 November 1916, when a star cast that included Enrico Caruso, Frieda Hempel and Giuseppe De Luca gave three performances.

According to W. H. Chase in the Evening Sun, the act 1 duet "brought down the house in a superb blending of the two men's voices"; later, in "Je crois entendre encore", Caruso "did some of the most artistic singing in plaintive minor".

In The Sun, W. J. Henderson, praised Hempel for her "ravishing upper tones", Da Luca was "a master of the delicate finish", and the bass Léon Rothier, in the small part of Nourabad, "filled Bizet's requirements perfectly".

[29] Some revivals were unconventional: one German production used a rewritten libretto based on a revised storyline in which Leila, transformed into a defiant Carmen-like heroine, commits suicide at the end of the final scene.

[9][21] The Sadler's Wells production was revived several times, but it was not until September 1987 that the company, by then transformed into English National Opera, replaced it with a new staging directed by Philip Prowse.

[36] Commenting on this performance in The Daily Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen drew attention to the "musing intimacy and quiet dignity" with which the duet was sung, as compared with more traditional macho renderings.

[44] Although many cities choose concert performances, there are also several stage productions, in 2024 i.e. in Berlin, Bordeaux, Cologne, Munich, the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc, Palermo, the Grand Théâtre Massenet of the Opéra de Saint-Étienne [], Saint Petersburg and Stara Zagora.

[47] The duet's theme has become the opera's principal musical signature, repeated in the work whenever the issue of the men's friendship arises—though in Dean's view the tune is not worthy of the weight it carries.

[46] Nadir's aria "Je crois entendre encore", towards the end of act 1, is written on a barcarole rhythm, with a dominant cor anglais whereby, says Lacombe, "[t]he listener has the impression that the horn is singing".

[46] The third act, divided into two brief scenes, begins with Zurga's entrance to quiet chromatic scales played over a tonic pedal, an effect that Bizet would later use in his incidental music to L'Arlésienne.

[50] The duet "Je frémis", says Dean, has clear hints of Verdi's Il trovatore, and the fiery chorus "Dès que le soleil" is reminiscent of a Mendelssohn scherzo, but otherwise the final act's music is weak and lacking in dramatic force.

[48] According to Lacombe, Les pêcheurs de perles is characteristic of French opéra lyrique, in particular through Bizet's use of arioso and dramatic recitative, his creation of atmospheres, and his evocation of the exotic.

[51] Berlioz described the opera's score as beautiful, expressive, richly coloured and full of fire, but Bizet himself did not regard the work highly, and thought that, a few numbers apart, it deserved oblivion.

[30] Parisian critics of the day, attuned to the gentler sounds of Auber and Offenbach, complained about the heaviness of Bizet's orchestration, which they said was noisy, overloaded and Wagnerian—"a fortissimo in three acts".

[30] Modern writers have generally treated the piece more generously; the music may be of uneven quality and over-reflective of the works of Bizet's contemporaries, says Dean, but there are interesting hints of his mature accomplishments.