Opera San Jose opens their new season with Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. Bizet, of course, was a great melodist, but plagued by self-doubt and unable to shepherd projects through, the way more proactive, entrepreneurial composers routinely did. That’s why he left us only one Carmen. But The Pearl Fishers has gradually won acceptance as the second choice Bizet opera. Over the summer, it’s just had eight performances in Santa Fe, six in Paris, and 20 in Sydney, Australia. Lots of audiences have enjoyed it without bothering about the botched, conventional libretto. Bizet, 25 years old, when he wrote the score, provides enough inspired music (including the opera’s one chestnut, the tenor-baritone duet “Au fond du temple saint”) to put the thing over, and it’s perfect for a young cast of lyric voices, and Opera San Jose can certainly provide that. As usual, there are two casts, both with interesting young singers to watch.