Explaining the rationale behind the new opera, Wacziarg said, "Last time, there were many people questioning how the audience would react to the opera and whether anyone would understand it. However, people have now realised that there is a huge audience and that people like the opera in India," said the hotelier whose daughter Aude-Priya Wacziarg is India's best-known opera voice.

The story line of the Oriental fantasy: two friends who in the interests of their friendship vow to forget the woman they both love. However, they are thrown together again with nearly fatal consequences. First performed in 1863, the music of The Pearl Fishers has been described as "steaming as the hot sands of India, as perfumed and opulent as the fleeting memory of a forbidden dream". Composer George Bizet's work is originally set in Ceylon. The sets and costumes will be created in India and Indian and French singers and musicians will collaborate on the opera.

"In everything I do, I want to take India to the world," Wacziarg told IANS. For this reason the opera would have five ballets of Indian dance.

Opera director and South Africa-born Patricia Panton sees The Pearl Fishers as nothing short of an operatic revolution in India. "This country has a natural musical tradition and the people here are naturally musical," said Panton. "The last place where I was organising operas was in Africa where Zulus formed the main singers - it was magnificent.

"So it is silly to suggest that the opera is just an European thing. The world is becoming more and more globalised and people are experimenting with all sorts of things. I see a great future for opera in this country."

Meanwhile Wacziarg's dream is to create an Indian opera company, which does operas around the world and brings a unique Indian sensibility to the musical form." The passion of my life is to bring an Indian voice to everything including the opera," he asserts.

Compiled by Cultural Correspondent