Georges Bizet formally
Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work,
CarmenCarmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.
During a brilliant student career at the Paris Conservatoire Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious
Prix de RomeThe Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of the two operas that reached the stage—
Les pêcheurs de perlesLes pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
and
La jolie fille de PerthLa jolie fille de Perth is an opera in four acts by Georges Bizet , from a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jules Adenis, after the novel by Sir Walter Scott...
—was immediately successful.
After the
Franco-Prussian WarThe Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
of 1870–71, in which Bizet served in the National Guard, he had little success with his one-act opera
DjamilehDjamileh is an opéra comique in one act by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Louis Gallet, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset.-Composition history:...
, though an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music to
Alphonse DaudetAlphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.- Early life :Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer — a man dogged through life by misfortune...
's play
L'Arlésienne was instantly popular. The production of Bizet's final opera
Carmen was delayed through fears that its themes of betrayal and murder would offend audiences. After its premiere on 3 March 1875 Bizet was convinced that the work was a failure; he died of a heart attack three months later, unaware that it would prove a spectacular and enduring success.
Bizet's marriage to
Geneviève HalévyGeneviève Halévy , was a French salonnière. She inspired Marcel Proust as a model for the Duchesse de Guermantes and Odette de Crécy in À la recherche du temps perdu....
was intermittently happy and produced one son. After his death his work, apart from
Carmen, was generally neglected. Manuscripts were given away or lost, and published versions of his works were frequently revised and adapted by other hands. He founded no school and had no obvious disciples or successors. After years of neglect his works began to be performed more frequently in the 20th century. Later commentators have acclaimed him as a composer of brilliance and originality whose premature death was a significant loss to French musical theatre.
Family background and childhood
Georges Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. He was registered as Alexandre César Léopold, but baptised as "Georges" on 16 March 1840, and was known by this name for the rest of his life. His father, Adolphe Bizet, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher despite his lack of formal training. He also composed a few works, including at least one published song. In 1837 he married Aimée Delsarte, against the wishes of her family who considered him a poor prospect; the Delsartes, though impoverished, were a cultured and highly musical family. Aimée was an accomplished pianist, while her brother
François DelsarteFrançois Alexandre Nicolas Chéri Delsarte was a French musician and teacher.Delsarte was born in Solesmes, Nord. He was a pupil of the Paris Conservatory, was for a time tenor singer in the Opéra Comique, and composed a few songs. However, he is chiefly known as a teacher in singing and...
was a distinguished singer and teacher who performed at the courts of both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. Delsarte's wife Rosine, a musical prodigy, had been an assistant professor of solfège at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 13.
Georges, an only child, showed early aptitude for music and quickly picked up the basics of musical notation from his mother, who probably gave him his first piano lessons. By listening at the door of the room where Adolphe conducted his classes, Georges learned to sing difficult songs accurately from memory, and developed an ability to identify and analyse complex
chordal structuresA chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...
. This precocity convinced his ambitious parents that he was ready to begin studying at the Conservatoire a year before he reached the minimum entry age of 10. Georges was interviewed by
Joseph MeifredJoseph Meifred was a hornist, a pedagogue, and a horn designer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with Louis-François Dauprat and won the first prize in horn performance in 1818...
, the horn virtuoso who was a member of the Conservatoire's Committee of Studies. Meifred was so struck by the boy's demonstration of his skills that he waived the age rule and offered to take him as soon as a place became available.
Conservatoire
Bizet was admitted to the Conservatoire on 9 October 1848, two weeks before his 10th birthday. He made an early impression; within six months he had won first prize in solfège, a feat that impressed
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume ZimmermannPierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, , known as Pierre Zimmerman and Joseph Zimmermann, was a French pianist, composer, and music teacher.Zimmermann was born in Paris, the son of a piano maker...
, the Conservatoire's former professor of piano. Zimmermann gave Bizet private lessons in
counterpointIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
and
fugueIn music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
, which continued until the old man's death in 1853. Through these classes Bizet met Zimmermann's son-in-law, the composer
Charles GounodCharles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, who became a lasting influence on the young pupil's musical style—although their relationship was often strained in later years. Under the tuition of
Antoine François MarmontelAntoine François Marmontel was a French pianist, teacher and musicographer.Marmontel entered the Paris Conservatory in 1827. His teachers were Pierre Zimmerman in pianoforte, Victor Dourlen in harmony, Jacques Fromental Halévy in fugue and Jean-François Le Sueur in composition...
, the Conservatoire's professor of piano, Bizet's pianism developed rapidly; he won the Conservatoire's second prize for piano in 1851, and first prize the following year. Bizet would later write to Marmontel: "In your class one learns something besides the piano; one becomes a musician".
Bizet's first preserved compositions, two wordless songs for
sopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, date from around 1850. In 1853 he joined
Fromental HalévyJacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
's composition class, and began to produce works of increasing sophistication and quality. Two of his songs, "Petite Marguerite" and "La Rose et l'abeille", were published in 1854. In 1855 he wrote an ambitious overture for a large orchestra, and prepared four-hand piano versions of two of Gounod's works: the opera
La nonne sanglanteLa nonne sanglante , is a five-act opera by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne. Written between 1852 and 1854, it was first produced on 18 October 1854 at the Salle Le Peletier by the Paris Opéra. It received 11 performances between October and November 1854...
and the Symphony in D. Bizet's work on the Gounod symphony inspired him, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, to write
his own symphonyThe Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for an 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29...
, which bore a close resemblance to Gounod's—note for note in some passages. Bizet's symphony was subsequently lost, rediscovered in 1933 and finally performed in 1935.
In 1856 Bizet competed for the prestigious
Prix de RomeThe Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
. His entry was not successful, but nor were any of the others; the musician's prize was not awarded that year. After this rebuff Bizet entered an opera competition which
Jacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
had organised for young composers, with a prize of 1,200 francs. The challenge was to set the one-act
librettoA libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
of
Le docteur MiracleLe docteur Miracle is an opérette in one act by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto, by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, is based on Sheridan's play Saint Patrick's Day. Bizet wrote the work when he was just 18 years old for a competition organised by Jacques Offenbach. He shared first...
by Léon Battu and
Ludovic HalévyLudovic Halévy was a French author and playwright. He was half Jewish : his Jewish father had converted to Christianity prior to his birth, to marry his mother, née Alexandrine Lebas.-Biography:Ludovic Halévy was born in Paris...
. The prize was awarded jointly to Bizet and Charles Lecocq, a compromise which years later Lecocq criticised on the grounds of the jury's manipulation by Fromental Halévy in favour of Bizet. As a result of his success Bizet became a regular guest at Offenbach's Friday evening parties, where among other musicians he met the aged Rossini who presented the young man with a signed photograph. Bizet was a great admirer of Rossini's music, and wrote not long after their first meeting that "Rossini is the greatest of them all, because like Mozart, he has all the virtues".
For his 1857 Prix de Rome entry Bizet, with Gounod's enthusiastic approval, chose to set the
cantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Clovis et Clotilde by Amédée Burion. Bizet was awarded the prize after a ballot of the members of the
Académie des Beaux-ArtsThe Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
overturned the judges' initial decision, which was in favour of the oboist Charles Colin. Under the terms of the award, Bizet received a financial grant for five years, the first two to be spent in Rome, the third in Germany and the final two in Paris. The only other requirement was the submission each year of an "envoi", a piece of original work to the satisfaction of the Académie. Before his departure for Rome in December 1857, Bizet's prize cantata was performed at the Académie to an enthusiastic reception.
Rome, 1858–60
On 27 January 1858 Bizet arrived at the
Villa MediciThe Villa Medici is a mannerist villa and an architectural complex with a garden contiguous with the larger Borghese gardens, on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti in Rome, Italy. The Villa Medici, founded by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and now property of the French...
, a 16th-century palace that since 1803 had housed the French Académie in Rome and which he described in a letter home as "paradise". Under its director, the painter
Jean-Victor SchnetzJean-Victor Schnetz was a French academic painter well regarded for his historical and genre paintings....
, the villa provided an ideal environment in which Bizet and his fellow-laureates could pursue their artistic endeavours. Bizet relished the convivial atmosphere, and quickly involved himself in the distractions of its social life; in his first six months in Rome his only composition was a
Te DeumThe Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
written for the Rodrigues Prize, a competition for a new religious work open to Prix de Rome winners. This piece failed to impress the judges, who awarded the prize to Adrien Barthe, the only other entrant. Bizet was discouraged to the extent that he vowed to write no more religious music. His
Te Deum remained forgotten and unpublished until 1971.
Through the winter of 1858–59 Bizet worked on his first envoi, an
opera buffaOpera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...
setting of Carlo Cambiaggio's libretto
Don ProcopioDon Procopio is a two-act opera buffa by Georges Bizet with an Italian libretto completed in 1859, and first performed in 1906.-Background:Bizet spent three years in Italy, 1857 to 1860, as winner of the Prix de Rome...
. Under the terms of his prize, Bizet's first envoi was supposed to be a mass, but following his
Te Deum experience he was averse to writing religious music. He was apprehensive about how this breach of the rules would be received at the Académie, but their response to
Don Procopio was initially positive, with praise for the composer's: "easy and brilliant touch" and "youthful and bold style".
For his second envoi, not wishing to test the Académie's tolerance too far, Bizet proposed to submit a quasi-religious work in the form of a secular mass on a text by
HoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
. This work, entitled
Carmen Saeculare, was intended as a song to
ApolloApollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
and
DianaIn Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
. No trace exists, and it is unlikely that Bizet ever started it. A tendency to conceive ambitious projects, only to quickly abandon them, became a feature of Bizet's Rome years; in addition to
Carmen Saeculare he considered and discarded at least five opera projects, two attempts at a symphony, and a symphonic ode on the theme of Ulysses and Circe. After
Don Procopio Bizet completed only one further work in Rome, the symphonic poem
Vasco da Gama. This replaced
Carmen Saeculare as his second envoi, and was well received by the Académie, though swiftly forgotten thereafter.
In the summer of 1859 Bizet and several companions travelled in the mountains and forests around
AnagniAnagni is an ancient town and comune in Latium, central Italy, in the hills east-southeast of Rome. It is a historical center in Ciociaria.-Geography:...
and
FrosinoneFrosinone is a town and comune in Lazio, central Italy, the administrative seat of the Province of Frosinone. It is located about 75 km south-east of Rome close to the Rome-Naples Autostrada A1...
. They also visited a convict settlement at
AnzioAnzio is a city and comune on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, about south of Rome.Well known for its seaside harbour setting, it is a fishing port and a departure point for ferries and hydroplanes to the Pontine Islands of Ponza, Palmarola and Ventotene...
; Bizet sent an enthusiastic letter to Marmontel, recounting his experiences. In August he made an extended journey south to
NaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and
PompeiiThe city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, where he was unimpressed with the former but delighted with the latter: "Here you live with the ancients; you see their temples, their theatres, their houses in which you find their furniture, their kitchen utensils..." Bizet began sketching a symphony based on his Italian experiences, but made little immediate headway; the project, which became his
Roma symphonyThe Symphony in C "Roma" is the second of Georges Bizet's symphonies. Unlike his first symphony, also in C major, which was written quickly at the age of 17, Roma was written over an eleven-year span, between the ages of 22 and 33 . Bizet was never fully satisfied with it, subjecting it to a...
, was not finished until 1868. On his return to Rome Bizet successfully requested permission to extend his stay in Italy into a third year, rather than going to Germany, so that he could complete "an important work" (which has not been identified). In September 1860, while visiting
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
with his friend and fellow-laureate
Ernest GuiraudErnest Guiraud was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann .- Biography :Guiraud began his schooling in Louisiana under the...
, Bizet received news that his mother was gravely ill in Paris, and made his way home.
Paris 1860–63
Back in Paris with two years of his grant remaining, Bizet was temporarily secure financially, and could ignore for the moment the difficulties that other young composers faced in the city. The two state-subsidised opera houses,
the OpéraThe Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
and the
Opéra-ComiqueThe Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
, each presented traditional repertoires that tended to stifle and frustrate new homegrown talent; only eight of the 54 Prix de Rome laureates between 1830 and 1860 had had works staged at the Opéra. Although French composers were better represented at the Opéra-Comique, the style and character of productions had remained largely unchanged since the 1830s. A number of smaller theatres catered for
operettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
, a field in which Offenbach was then paramount, while the
Théâtre ItalienOver time, there have been several buildings and several theatrical companies named the "Théâtre-Italien" or the "Comédie-Italienne" in Paris. Following the times, the theatre has shown both plays and operas...
specialised in second-rate Italian opera. The best prospect for aspirant opera composers was the
Théâtre LyriqueThe Théâtre Lyrique was one of four opera companies performing in Paris during the middle of the 19th century . The company was founded in 1847 as the Opéra-National by the French composer Adolphe Adam and renamed Théâtre Lyrique in 1852...
company which, despite repeated financial crises, operated intermittently in various premises under its resourceful manager
Léon CarvalhoLéon Carvalho was a French impresario and stage director.-Biography:Born Léon Carvaille in Port-Louis, Mauritius, he came to France at an early age...
. This company had staged the first performances of Gounod's
Faust and his
Roméo et JulietteRoméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
, and of a shortened version of
BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's
Les TroyensLes Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...
.
On 13 March 1861 Bizet attended the Paris premiere of
WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's opera
TannhäuserTannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, a performance greeted by audience riots which were stage-managed by the influential
Jockey-Club de ParisThe Jockey Club de Paris is best remembered as a gathering of the elite of nineteenth-century French society. The club still exists at 2 rue Rabelais, and hosts the International Federation of Racing Authorities...
. Despite this distraction Bizet revised his opinions of Wagner's music, which he had previously dismissed as merely eccentric. He now declared Wagner "above and beyond all living composers". Thereafter, accusations of "Wagnerism" were often laid against Bizet, throughout his compositional career. As a pianist, Bizet had showed considerable skill from his earliest years. A contemporary asserted that he could have assured a future on the concert platform, but chose to conceal his talent "as though it were a vice". In May 1861 Bizet gave a rare demonstration of his virtuoso skills when, at a dinner party at which
LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
was present, he astonished everyone by playing on sight, flawlessly, one of the maestro's most difficult pieces. Liszt commented: "I thought there were only two men able to surmount the difficulties ... there are three, and ... the youngest is perhaps the boldest and most brilliant".
Bizet's third envoi was delayed for nearly a year by the prolonged illness and eventual death, in September 1861, of his mother. He eventually submitted a trio of orchestral works: an overture entitled
La Chasse d'Ossian, a scherzo and a funeral march. The overture has been lost; the scherzo was later absorbed into the
Roma symphony, and the funeral march music was adapted and used in
Les pêcheurs de perlesLes pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
. In 1862 Bizet fathered a child with the family's housekeeper, Marie Reiter. The boy was brought up to believe that he was Adolphe Bizet's child; only on her deathbed in 1913 did Reiter reveal her son's true paternity.
Bizet's fourth and final envoi, which occupied him for much of 1862, was a one-act opera,
La guzla de l'émir. As a state-subsidised theatre, the Opéra-Comique was obliged from time to time to stage the works of Prix de Rome laureates, and
La guzla duly went into rehearsal in 1863. However, in April Bizet received an offer, which originated from Count Walewski, to write a three-act opera,
Les pêcheurs de perlesLes pêcheurs de perles is an opera in three acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was first performed on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run...
, using a libretto by Michel Carré and
Eugène CormonPierre-Etienne Piestre, known as Eugène Cormon , was a French dramatist and librettist. He used his mother’s name, Cormon, during his career....
. Because a condition of the offer was that the opera should be the composer's first publicly staged work, Bizet hurriedly withdrew
La guzla from production and incorporated parts of its music into the new opera. The first performance of
Les pêcheurs de perles, by the Théâtre Lyrique company, was on 30 September. Critical opinion was generally hostile, though Berlioz praised the work, writing that it did "does M. Bizet the greatest honour". Public reaction was lukewarm, and the opera's run ended after 18 performances. It was not performed again until 1886.
Years of struggle
When his Prix de Rome grant expired, Bizet soon found he could not make a living from writing music. He accepted piano pupils and some composition students, two of whom, Edmond Galabert and Paul Lacombe, became his close friends. He also worked as an accompanist at rehearsals and auditions for various operas, including Berlioz's
L'Enfance du ChristL'enfance du Christ , Opus 25, is an oratorio by the French composer Hector Berlioz, based on the Holy Family's flight into Egypt. Berlioz wrote his own words for the piece. Most of it was composed in 1853 and 1854, but it also incorporates an earlier work La fuite en Egypte...
and Gounod's
MireilleMireille is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Michel Carré after Frédéric Mistral's poem Mireio.-Composition history:...
. However, his main work in this period was as an arranger of others' works. He made piano transcriptions for hundreds of operas and other pieces, and prepared vocal scores and orchestral arrangements for all kinds of music. He was also, briefly, a music critic for
La Revue Nationale et Étrangère, under the assumed name of "Gaston de Betzi". Bizet's single contribution in this capacity appeared on 3 August 1867, after which he quarrelled with the magazine's new editor and resigned.
Since 1862 Bizet had been working intermittently on
Ivan IV, an opera based on the life of Ivan the Terrible. Carvalho
failed to deliver on his promise to produce it, so in December 1865 Bizet offered it to the Opéra, who rejected it; the work remained unperformed until 1946. In July 1866 Bizet signed another contract with Carvalho, for
La jolie fille de PerthLa jolie fille de Perth is an opera in four acts by Georges Bizet , from a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jules Adenis, after the novel by Sir Walter Scott...
the libretto for which, by J.H. Vernoy de Saint-Georges after
Sir Walter ScottSir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
, is described by Bizet's biographer
Winton DeanWinton Dean is an English musicologist of the 20th century, most famous for his research concerning the life and works—in particular the operas and oratorios—of Handel, as detailed in his book Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques .Dean was born in Birkenhead...
as "the worst Bizet was ever called upon to set". Problems over the casting and other issues delayed its premiere for a year before it was finally performed by the Théâtre Lyrique on 26 December 1867. Its press reception was more favourable than that for any of Bizet's other operas;
Le Ménestral's critic hailed the second act as "a masterpiece from beginning to end". Despite the opera's success, Carvalho's financial difficulties meant a run of only 18 performances.
While
La jolie fille was in rehearsal, Bizet worked with three other composers, each of whom contributed a single act to a four-act operetta
Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre. When the work was performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée on 13 December 1867 it was a great success, and the
Revue et Gazette Musicale's critic lavished particular praise on Bizet's act: "Nothing could be more stylish, smarter and, at the same time, more distinguished". Bizet also found time to finish his long-gestating
Roma symphony, and wrote numerous keyboard works and songs. Nevertheless, this period of Bizet's life was marked by significant disappointments. At least two projected operas were abandoned with little or no work done. Several competition entries, including a cantata and a hymn composed for the
Paris Exhibition of 1867The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
were unsuccessful.
La Coupe du Roi de Thulé, his entry for an opera competition, was not placed in the first five; from the fragments of this score that survive, analysts have discerned pre-echoes of
Carmen. On 28 February 1869 the
Roma symphony was performed at the Cirque Napoléon, under Jules Pasdeloup. Afterwards Bizet informed Galabert that on the basis of proportionate applause, hisses and catcalls, the work was a success.
Marriage
Not long after Fromental Halévy's death in 1862, Bizet had been approached on behalf of Mme. Halévy about completing his old tutor's unfinished opera
NoéNoé was the last opera of the composer Fromental Halévy.The opera's libretto is by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, who had written the book for the composer's first opera to reach performance, L'artisan...
. Although no action was taken at that time, Bizet remained on friendly terms with the Halévy family. Fromental had left two daughters; the elder, Esther, died in 1864, an event which so traumatised Mme. Halévy that she could not tolerate the company of her younger daughter
GenevièveGeneviève Halévy , was a French salonnière. She inspired Marcel Proust as a model for the Duchesse de Guermantes and Odette de Crécy in À la recherche du temps perdu....
, who from the age of 15 lived with other family members. It is unclear when she and Bizet became emotionally attached, but in October 1867 he informed Galabert: "I have met an adorable girl whom I love! In two years she will be my wife!". The pair became engaged, although the Halévy family initially disallowed the match. According to Bizet they considered him an unsuitable catch: "penniless, left-wing, anti-religious and Bohemian", which Dean observes are odd grounds of objection from "a family bristling with artists and eccentrics". By summer 1869 their objections had been overcome, and the wedding took place on 3 June 1869. Ludovic Halévy wrote in his journal: "Bizet has spirit and talent. He
should succeed".
As a belated homage to Fromental, Bizet took up the
Noé manuscript and completed it. Parts of his moribund
Vasco da Gama and
Ivan IV were incorporated into the score, but a projected production at the Théâtre Lyrique failed to materialise when Carvalho's company finally went bankrupt, and
Noé remained unperformed until 1885. Bizet's marriage was initially happy, but was affected by Geneviève's nervous instability (inherited from both her parents), her difficult relations with her mother and by Mme. Halévy's interference in the couple's affairs. Despite this, Bizet kept on good terms with his mother-in-law and maintained an extensive correspondence with her. In the year following the marriage he considered plans for at least half a dozen new operas, and began to sketch the music for two of them:
Clarissa Harlowe based on
Samuel RichardsonSamuel Richardson was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He is best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded , Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady and The History of Sir Charles Grandison...
's novel
ClarissaClarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady is an epistolary novel by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748. It tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is the longest real novelA completed work that has been released by a publisher in...
, and
Grisélidis with a libretto from
Victorien SardouVictorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
. However, his progress on these projects was brought to a halt in July 1870, with the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian WarThe Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
.
War and upheaval
After a series of perceived provocations from Prussia, culminating in the offer of the Spanish crown to the Prussian Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, the French emperor Napoleon III declared war on 15 July 1870. Initially this step was supported by an outbreak of patriotic fervour and confident expectations of victory. Bizet, along with other composers and artists, joined the National Guard and began training. He was critical of the antiquated equipment with which he was supposed to fight; his unit's guns, he said, were more dangerous to themselves than to the enemy. The national mood was soon depressed by news of successive reverses; at Sedan on 2 September the French armies suffered an overwhelming defeat; Napoleon was captured and deposed, and the Second Empire came to a sudden end.
Bizet greeted with enthusiasm the proclamation in Paris of the Third Republic.
The new government did not sue for peace, and by 17 September the Prussian armies had surrounded Paris. Unlike Gounod, who fled to England, Bizet rejected opportunities to leave the besieged city: "I can't leave Paris! It's impossible! It would be quite simply an act of cowardice", he wrote to Mme Halévy. Life in the city became frugal and harsh, although by October there were efforts to re-establish normality. Pasdeloup resumed his regular Sunday concerts, and on 5 November the Opéra reopened with excerpts from works by Gluck, Rossini and Meyerbeer.
An armistice was signed on 26 January 1871, but the departure of the Prussian troops from Paris in March presaged a period of confusion and civil disturbance. Following an uprising, the city's municipal authority was taken over by dissidents who established the
Paris CommuneThe Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
. Bizet decided that he was no longer safe in the city, and he and Geneviève escaped to
CompiègneCompiègne is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River...
. Later they moved to
Le VésinetLe Vésinet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center....
where they sat out the two months of the Commune, within hearing distance of the gunfire that resounded as government troops gradually crushed the uprising: "The cannons are rumbling with unbelievable violence", Bizet wrote to his mother-in-law on 12 May. By 25 May hostilities had ended; it was later estimated that during the Commune and in the reprisals which followed, around 25,000 lives had been lost.
Djamileh, L'Arlésienne and Don Rodrigue
As life in Paris returned to normal, in June 1871 Bizet's appointment as chorus-master at The Opéra was seemingly confirmed by its director,
Émile PerrinÉmile-César-Victor Perrin was a French painter, mainly known as a theatre director and impresario, born in Rouen on 9 January 1814, died 8 October 1885. His son-in-law was Camille du Locle....
. Bizet was due to begin his duties in October, but on 1 November the post was assumed by Hector Salomon. In her biography of Bizet, Mina Curtiss surmises that he either resigned or refused to take up the position as a protest against what he thought was the director's unjustified closing of
Ernest ReyerErnest Reyer, the adopted name of Louis Étienne Ernest Rey, was a French opera composer and music critic .- Biography :...
's opera
Erostrate after only two performances. Bizet resumed work on
Clarissa Harlowe and
Grisélidis, but plans for the latter to be staged at the Opéra-Comique fell through, and neither work was finished; only fragments of their music survive. Bizet's other completed works in 1871 were the piano duet entitled
Jeux d'enfants, and a one-act opera,
DjamilehDjamileh is an opéra comique in one act by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Louis Gallet, based on an oriental tale, Namouna, by Alfred de Musset.-Composition history:...
, which opened at the Opéra-Comique in May 1872. It was poorly staged and incompetently sung; at one point the leading singer missed 32 bars of music. It closed after 11 performances, not to be heard again until 1938. On 10 July Geneviève gave birth to the couple's only child, a son, Jacques.
Bizet's next major assignment came from Carvalho, now managing Paris's Vaudeville theatre, who wanted incidental music for
Alphonse DaudetAlphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.- Early life :Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer — a man dogged through life by misfortune...
's play
L'Arlésienne. When the play opened on 1 October the music was dismissed by critics as too complex for popular taste. However, encouraged by Reyer and
MassenetJules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
, Bizet fashioned a four-movement suite from the music, which was performed under Pasdeloup on 10 November to an enthusiastic reception. In the winter of 1872–73, Bizet supervised preparations for a revival of the still-absent Gounod's
Roméo et Juliette at the Opéra-Comique. Relations between the two had been cool for some years, but Bizet responded positively to his former mentor's request for help, writing: "You were the beginning of my life as an artist. I spring from you".
In June 1872 Bizet informed Galabert: "I have just been ordered to compose three acts for the Opéra-Comique. [Henri] Meilhac and [Ludovic] Halévy are doing my piece". The subject chosen for this project was
Prosper MériméeProsper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...
's short novel
Carmen"Carmen" is a novella by Prosper Mérimée, written and first published in 1845. It has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous opera by Georges Bizet.-Sources:...
. Bizet began the music in the summer of 1873, but the Opéra-Comique's management was concerned about the suitability of this risqué story for a theatre that generally provided wholesome entertainment, and work was suspended. Bizet then began composing
Don Rodrigue, an adaptation of the
El CidRodrigo Díaz de Vivar , known as El Cid Campeador , was a Castilian nobleman, military leader, and diplomat...
story by
Louis GalletLouis Gallet was an inexhaustible French writer of operatic libretti, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles, who is remembered above all for his adaptations of fiction—and Scripture— to provide librettos of cantatas and opera, notably by composers Georges...
and
Édouard BlauÉdouard Blau, born Blois 30 May 1836, died Paris, 7 January 1906) was a French dramatist and opera librettist. He was a cousin of Alfred Blau, another librettist of the same period....
. He played a piano version to a select audience that included
Gabriel FauréGabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
, hoping that Fauré's approval might influence the directors of the Opéra to stage the work. However, on the night of 28–29 October, the Opéra burned to the ground; the directors, amid other pressing concerns, set
Don Rodrigue aside. It was never completed; Bizet later adapted a theme from its final act as the basis of his 1875 overture,
Patrie.
Carmen
Adolphe de LeuvenAdolphe de Leuven was a French theatre director and a librettist. Also known as Grenvallet, and Count Adolph Ribbing. He was the son of Adolph Ribbing....
, the co-director of the Opéra-Comique most bitterly opposed to the
Carmen project, resigned early in 1874, removing the main barrier to the work's production. Bizet finished the score during the summer, and was pleased with the outcome: "I have written a work that is all clarity and vivacity, full of colour and melody". The renowned mezzo-soprano Célestine Galli-Marié (known professionally as "Galli-Marié"), was engaged to sing the title role. According to Dean she was as delighted by the part as Bizet was by her suitability for it. There were rumours that he and the singer pursued a brief affair; his relations with Geneviève were strained at this time, and they lived apart for several months.
When rehearsals began in October 1874 the orchestra had difficulties with the score, finding some parts unplayable. The chorus likewise declared some of their music impossible to sing, and were dismayed by having to act as individuals, smoking and fighting onstage rather than merely standing in line. Bizet also had to counter further attempts at the Opéra-Comique to modify parts of the action which they deemed improper. Only when the leading singers threatened to withdraw from the production did the management give way. Resolving these issues delayed the first night until 3 March 1875 on which morning, by chance, Bizet's appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour was announced.
Among leading musical figures at the premiere were Massenet,
Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and Gounod. Geneviève, suffering from an abscess in her right eye, was unable to be present. The opera's first performance extended to four-and-a-half hours; the final act did not begin until after midnight. Afterwards, Massenet and Saint-Saëns were congratulatory, Gounod less so. According to one account he accused Bizet of plagiarism: "Georges has robbed me! Take the Spanish airs and mine out of the score and there remains nothing to Bizet's credit but the sauce that masks the fish". Much of the press comment was negative, expressing consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue. Galli-Marié's performance was described by one critic as "the very incarnation of vice". Others complained of a lack of melody, and made unfavourable comparisons with the traditional Opéra-Comique fare of
AuberDaniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
and
BoieldieuFrançois-Adrien Boieldieu was a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart".-Biography:...
. Léon Escudier in
L'Art Musical called the music "dull and obscure ... the ear grows weary of waiting for the cadence that never comes". There was, however, praise from the poet
Théodore de BanvilleThéodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
, who applauded Bizet for presenting a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets". The public's reaction was lukewarm, and Bizet soon became convinced of its failure: "I foresee a definite and hopeless flop".
Illness and death
For most of his life Bizet had suffered from a recurrent throat complaint. A heavy smoker, he may have further undermined his health by overwork during the mid-1860s, when he toiled over publishers' transcriptions for up to 16 hours a day. In 1868 he informed Galabert that he had been very ill with abscesses in the windpipe: "I suffered like a dog". In 1871, and again in 1874 while completing
Carmen, he had been disabled by severe bouts of what he described as "throat angina", and suffered a further attack in late March 1875. At that time, depressed by the evident failure of
Carmen, Bizet was slow to recover and fell ill again in May. At the end of the month he went to his holiday home at
BougivalBougival is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center....
and, feeling a little better, went for a swim in the Seine. On the next day, 1 June, he was afflicted by high fever and pain, which was followed by an apparent heart attack. He seemed temporarily to recover, but in the early hours of 3 June he suffered a fatal second attack.
The suddenness of Bizet's death, and awareness of his depressed mental state, fuelled rumours of suicide. Although the exact cause of death was never settled with certainty, physicians discounted such theories and eventually determined the cause as "a cardiac complication of acute articular rheumatism". News of the death stunned Paris's musical world; as Galli-Marié was too upset to appear, that evening's performance of
Carmen was cancelled and replaced with Boieldieu's
La Dame blancheLa dame blanche is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no less than five of the works by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, including his novels The Monastery, Guy Mannering, and The...
.
At the funeral on 5 June at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Monmartre, more than 4,000 people were present. Adolphe Bizet led the mourners who included Gounod, Thomas, Ludovic Halévy, Léon Halévy and Massenet. An orchestra under Pasdeloup played
Patrie, and the organist improvised a fantasy on themes from
Carmen. At the burial which followed at the
Père Lachaise CemeteryPère Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
, Gounod gave the eulogy. He said that Bizet had been struck down just as he was becoming recognised as a true artist. Towards the end of his address Gounod broke down, and was unable to deliver his final peroration. After a special performance of
Carmen at the Opéra-Comique that night, the press which had almost universally condemned the piece three months earlier now declared Bizet a master.
Early works
Bizet's earliest compositions, chiefly songs and keyboard pieces written as exercises, give early indications of his emergent power and his gifts as a melodist. Dean sees evidence in the piano work
Romance sans parole, written before 1854, of "the conjunction of melody, rhythm and accompaniment" that is characteristic of Bizet's mature works. Bizet's first orchestral piece was an overture written in 1855 in the manner of Rossini's
Guillaume TellGuillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
. Critics have found it unremarkable, but the
Symphony in CThe Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for an 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29...
of the same year has been warmly praised by later commentators who have made favourable comparisons with Mozart and Schubert. In Dean's view the symphony has "few rivals and perhaps no superior in the work of any composer of such youth". The critic
Ernest NewmanErnest Newman was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective...
suggests that Bizet may at this time thought that his future lay in the field of instrumental music, before an "inner voice" (and the realities of the French musical world) turned him towards the stage.
Orchestral, piano and vocal works
After his early Symphony in C, Bizet's purely orchestral output is sparse. The
Roma symphony over which he laboured for more than eight years compares poorly, in Dean's view, with its juvenile predecessor. The work, says Dean, owes something to Gounod, and contains passages that recall
WeberCarl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
and
MendelssohnJakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
. However, Dean contends that the work suffers from poor organisation and an excess of pretentious music; he calls it a "misfire". Bizet's other mature orchestral work, the overture
Patrie, is similarly dismissed: "an awful warning of the danger of confusing art with patriotism". The musicologist
Hugh MacdonaldHugh Macdonald is an English musicologist chiefly known for his work within the music of the 19th century, especially in France. He has been general editor of the Hector Berlioz: New Edition of the Complete Works since its inception in 1967 and has been particularly active in the revival of...
argues that Bizet's best orchestral music is found in the suites that he derived respectively from the piano work
Jeux d'enfants and the incidental music for
L'Arlésienne. In these he demonstrates a maturity of style that, had he lived longer, might have been the basis for future great orchestral works.
Bizet's piano works have not entered the concert pianist's repertoire, and are generally too difficult for amateurs to attempt. An exception is the set of 12 pieces evoking the world of children's games,
Jeux d'enfants, written for four hands. Here, Bizet avoided the virtuoso passages which tend to dominate his solo works. The earlier solo pieces bear the influence of Chopin; later works, such as the
Variations Chromatiques and the
Chasse Fantastique, owe more to Liszt. Most of Bizet's songs were written in the period 1866–68. Dean defines the main weaknesses in these songs as an unimaginative repetition of the same music for each verse, and a tendency to write for the orchestra rather than the voice. Much of Bizet's larger-scale vocal music is lost; the early
Te Deum, which survives in full, is rejected by Dean as "a wretched work [that] merely illustrates Bizet's unfitness to write religious music."
Dramatic works
Bizet's early one-act opera
Le docteur Miracle provides the first clear signs of his promise in this genre, its sparkling music including, according to Dean, "many happy touches of parody, scoring and comic characterisation". Newman perceives evidence of Bizet's later achievements in many of his earliest works: "[A]gain and again we light upon some touch or other in them that only a musician with a dramatic root of the matter in him could have achieved." Until
Carmen, however, Bizet was not essentially an innovator in the musical theatre. He wrote most of his operas in the traditions of Italian and French opera established by such as
DonizettiDomenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, Rossini, Berlioz, Gounod and Thomas. Macdonald suggests that, technically, he surpassed all of these, with a feeling for the human voice that compares with that of Mozart.
In
Don Procopio Bizet followed the stock devices of Italian opera as typified by Donizetti in
Don PasqualeDon Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, a work which it closely resembles. However, the familiar idiom is interspersed with original touches in which Bizet's fingerprints emerge unmistakeably. In his first significant opera,
Les pêcheurs de perles, Bizet was hampered by a dull libretto and a laborious plot; nevertheless, the music in Dean's view rises at times "far above the level of contemporary French opera". Its many original flourishes include the introduction to the
cavatinaCavatina is a musical term, originally a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air...
Comme autrefois dans la nuit sombre played by two French horns over a cello background, an effect which in the words of analyst Hervé Lacombe, "resonates in the memory like a fanfare lost in a distant forest". While the music of
Les pêcheurs is atmospheric and deeply evocative of the opera's Eastern setting, in
La jolie fille de Perth Bizet made no attempt to introduce Scottish colour or mood, though the scoring includes highly imaginative touches such as a separate band of woodwind and strings during the opera's Act III seduction scene.
From Bizet's unfinished works, Macdonald highlights
La coupe du roi de Thulé as giving clear signs of the power that would reach a pinnacle in
Carmen, and suggests that had
Clarissa Harlowe and
Grisélidis been completed, Bizet's legacy would have been "infinitely richer". As Bizet moved away from the accepted musical conventions of French opera he encountered critical hostility. In the case of
Djamileh, the accusation of "Wagnerism" was raised again, as audiences struggled to understand the score's originality; many found the music pretentious and monotonous, lacking in both rhythm and melody. By contrast, modern critical opinion as expressed by Macdonald is that
Djamileh is "a truly enchanting piece, full of inventive touches, especially of chromatic colour."
Ralph P. Locke, in his study of
Carmen's origins, draws attention to Bizet's successful evocation of Andalusian Spain. Grout, in his
History of Western Music, praises the music's extraordinary rhythmic and melodic vitality, and Bizet's ability to obtain the maximum dramatic effect in the most economical fashion. Among the opera's early champions were
TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
,
BrahmsJohannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, and particularly Wagner, who commented: "Here, thank God, at last for a change is somebody with ideas in his head." Another champion of the work was
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, who claimed to know it by heart; "It is music that makes no pretensions to depth, but it is delightful in its simplicity, so unaffected and sincere". By broad consent,
Carmen represents the fulfilment of Bizet's development as a master of music drama, and the culmination of the genre of
opéra comiqueOpéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent , which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections...
.
Legacy
After Bizet's death many of his manuscripts were lost; works were revised by other hands, and published in these unauthorised versions so that it is often difficult to establish what is authentic Bizet. Even
Carmen was altered into
grand operaGrand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
format by the replacement of its dialogue with recitatives written by Guiraud, and by other amendments to the score. The music world did not immediately acknowledge Bizet as a master and, apart from
Carmen and the
L'Arlésienne suite, few of his works were performed in the years immediately following his death. However, the 20th century saw an increase of interest.
Don Procopio was revived in
Monte CarloMonte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
in 1906; An Italian version of
Les pêcheurs de perles was performed at the
Metropolitan OperaThe Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York on 13 November 1916, with Caruso in the leading tenor role; it has since become a staple at many opera houses. After its first performance in Switzerland in 1935, the Symphony in C entered the concert repertory, and has been recorded by, among many others, Sir Thomas Beecham. Excerpts from
La coupe du roi de Thulé, edited by Winton Dean, were broadcast by the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on 12 July 1955, and
Le docteur Miracle was revived in London on 8 December 1957 by the Park Lane Group. Items from
Vasco da Gama and
Ivan IV have been recorded, as have numerous songs and the complete piano music.
Carmen, after its lukewarm initial Paris run of 45 performances, became a worldwide popular success after performances in Vienna (1875) and London (1878). It has been hailed as the first opera of the
verismoVerismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
school, in which sordid and brutal subjects are emphasised, with art reflecting life—"not idealised life but life as actually lived."
Schonberg surmises that had Bizet lived, he might have revolutionised French opera; as it is, verismo was taken up mainly by Italians, notably
PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
who, according to Dean, developed the idea "till it became threadbare". Bizet founded no specific school, though Dean names
ChabrierEmmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...
and
RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
as composers influenced by him. Dean also suggests that a fascination with Bizet's tragic heroes—Frédéri in
L'Arlésienne, José in
Carmen—is reflected in Tchaikovsky's late symphonies, particularly the
B minor "Pathetique"The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...
. Macdonald writes that Bizet's legacy is limited by the shortness of his life and by the false starts and lack of focus that persisted until his final five years. "The spectacle of great works unwritten either because Bizet had other distractions, or because no one asked him to write them, or because of his premature death, is infinitely dispiriting, yet the brilliance and the individuality of his best music is unmistakable. It has greatly enriched a period of French music already rich in composers of talent and distinction".
Of Bizet's family circle, his father Adolphe died in 1886. Bizet's son Jacques committed suicide in 1922 after an unhappy love affair. Jean Reiter, Bizet's elder son, had a successful career as press director of
Le TempsLe Temps was one of Paris's most important daily newspapers from April 25, 1861 to November 30, 1942.Founded in 1861 by Edmund Chojecki and Auguste Nefftzer, Le Temps was under Nefftzer's direction for ten years, when Adrien Hébrard took his place...
, became an Officer of the Legion of Honour, and died in 1939 at the age of 77. In 1886 Geneviève married Émile Straus, a rich lawyer; she became a famous Parisian society hostess and a close friend of, among others,
Marcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
. She showed little interest in her first husband's musical legacy, made no effort to catalogue Bizet's manuscripts and gave many away as souvenirs. She died in 1926; in her will she established a fund for a Georges Bizet prize, to be awarded annually to a composer under 40 who had "produced a remarkable work within the previous five years". Winners of the prize include
Tony AubinTony Louis Alexandre Aubin was a French composer.From 1925 to 1930 Aubin studied at the Paris Conservatory under Samuel Rousseau , Noel Gallon , Philippe Gaubert , and Paul Dukas . He was awarded the Prix de Rome for the cantata Actaeon in 1930...
,
Jean-Michel DamaseJean-Michel Damase is a French pianist, conductor and composer of classical music.Damase was studying with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau at age five and composing by age nine...
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Henri DutilleuxHenri Dutilleux is one of the most important French composers of the second half of the 20th century, producing work in the tradition of Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Albert Roussel, but in a style distinctly his own...
and
Jean MartinonJean Martinon was a French conductor and composer.-Biography:Martinon was born in Lyon, where he began his education, going on to the Conservatoire de Paris to study under Albert Roussel for composition, under Charles Munch and Roger Désormière for conducting, under Vincent d'Indy for harmony,...
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