GEORGES BIZET

Georges Bizet was born on October 25, 1838 into a musical family. His mother was a talented pianist and his father taught singing. Bizet grew up near Paris on the southern slopes of Montmartre. His musical talents were nurtured early and he was enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire at age nine. Despite his young age, Bizet excelled as a music student and won many honors and awards at the Conservatoire.

Georges composed his first symphony when he was 17. In 1857, after winning the prestigious composition award the Prix de Rome, he left Paris to study in Rome. Bizet enjoyed both the climate and the culture in Rome and it was here that he absorbed a great deal of the art, literature and music of the Mediterranean which influenced his work.

At 20, Bizet returned to Paris where he began teaching piano and transcribing and writing commissioned operas. Although he was an accomplished pianist — proclaimed by Franz Liszt in 1861 as one of the three finest pianists in Europe — he rejected performing in concert or teaching at the Conservatoire.

In 1869, Bizet married Geneviève Halévy, daughter of composer Jacques Halévy, who was also Bizet's professor and friend. The couple had a happy marriage. When the Franco–Prussian War erupted in 1870, Bizet joined the National Guard. He and his wife were in Paris throughout the siege. When the fighting reached the edge of the city, they were able to escape to safety.

The development of Bizet's colorful, exotic, dramatic style of orchestration was delayed by his composing more traditional music and operas, interruptions by other demands on his time, and periods of illness and/or depression.

Bizet's distinctive lyrical style finally began to emerge with his first important opera, Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers) in the early 1860's. Lasting just 18 performances, the critic's opinions were mixed — from "a considerable number of beautiful, expressive pieces filled with fire and rich coloring" to "there were no fisherman in the text and no pearls in the music"! Bizet's own judgment of Les Pêcheurs was that it was "an honorable, brilliant failure", but time has shown that he was much too severe with himself. The opera continues to delight audiences all over the world. It was a huge success when produced by Cleveland Opera in 1989 in a production directed and choreographed by Dorothy Danner, who is returning to mount this year's production of CARMEN.

His last opera, CARMEN, met resistance on all fronts and its premiere was postponed several times. Financial problems arose in the opera house, presenters were timid about producing the opera due to the realistic nature of the material, and the directors of the opera house were opposed to presenting CARMEN's gypsies, murderers and thieves in a theatre known for family entertainment. There were problems finding the proper leading lady, and chorus members were alarmed when they were asked to move around on stage while singing. (Before Bizet's time, opera choristers stood still while singing on stage; but CARMEN is filled with action for all the performers, including the chorus.) Attempts were made by directors, librettists, and producers to tone down the realism of the production, but Bizet stood firm.

CARMEN finally opened on March 3, 1875, following excellent final rehearsals. During the rehearsals, many members of the company came to fully enjoy and accept the beauty and power of Bizet's music. Nevertheless, the audience reacted to the opera's departure from the strict conventionality of the times with shock and, except in a few instances, cold silence. The critics hated the piece. They were either dissatisfied with the music or they disapproved of the libretto. In spite of bad reviews, CARMEN had a successful run of 37 performances in its first year.

Georges Bizet was utterly dejected by the reception. The mental depression that followed, along with a severe attack of the throat trouble from which he suffered through the years, prompted him to go to the country, where he died on June 3, 1875 at the young age of thirty-seven.

Today it is obvious that the critics were wrong about Bizet's CARMEN. It was his supreme achievement. Not long after Bizet's death the opera received many new productions. It has since been staged all over the world in many different languages. CARMEN has become one of the most popular works in the opera world.