If Georges Bizet had composed only Carmen, he would still have earned his place in classical music’s Hall of Fame. Alas, he died at the tender age of 36 – believing that his recently premiered Carmen was a flop – leaving only a slender body of work, much of which quickly fell into obscurity. Even his teenage Symphony in C, now a mainstay of the orchestral repertoire, was only rediscovered in 1933.
He was born Alexandre César Léopold Bizet in Paris on 25th October 1838 – the family quickly adopted the names Georges, which is how he was baptised in 1840. His father, Adolphe, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher. Aimée Delsartes, his mother, came from a poor but cultured family and was a fine pianist, who probably taught young Georges the piano.
He became quite the prodigy and, two weeks before his tenth birthday, was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Charles Gounod, who would prove a close mentor (“You were the beginning of my life as an artist”), and Fromental Halévy, whose daughter, Génévieve, he would marry in 1869.
In 1857, at the second attempt, Bizet won the coveted Prix de Rome for his cantata Clovis et Clotilde, a prize that was effectively a passport to Italy and a two-year, all expenses paid residency at the Villa Medici, to focus on composition. Bizet had grand ideas how he would spend his time in Rome profitably. “I want to do nothing chic,” he wrote. “I want to have ideas before beginning a piece, and that is not how I worked in Paris.” Bizet certainly conceived ambitious projects there, but most were discarded. Apart from an opera buffa (Don Procopio), the only other work completed in Rome was the ode-symphonique, Vasco da Gama, which was largely modelled on Gounod and Meyerbeer.
Once his Prix de Rome grant expired, Bizet struggled to make ends meet and accepted teaching jobs, playing for rehearsals and arranging others’ works. He was a brilliant pianist, who rather hid his light under a bushel. At a soirée at which Franz Liszt was present, Bizet astonished the guests by sight-reading, flawlessly, one of Liszt’s most challenging works.
Two operatic projects Les Pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La Jolie Fille de Perth (1867) – met with less critical success, although Berlioz praised The Pearl Fishers, writing that it “does M. Bizet the greatest honour”. Then, in 1875, the realism of Carmen caused a scandal when it premiered at the Opéra-Comique. Bizet was convinced of its failure, “I foresee a definite and hopeless flop.” Within three months, he was dead (from a heart attack), unaware that Carmen would become one of the world’s best-loved and most-performed operas.
In recent years, efforts to explore the composer beyond Carmen have borne fruit and our top ten playlist includes a number of works that may be happy discoveries. For this playlist, we have used several less common selections from Palazetto Bru Zane’s recently released Georges Bizet: Portrait.
1Carmen
Carmen has a fair claim to the title of the world’s most popular opera. It was based on a gritty novella by Prosper Mérimée, a gritty, sardonic tale, much of it told from the perspective of the soldier Don José, who is in prison, awaiting his execution for murdering Carmen. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy were the librettists charged with adapting the story for a family audience at the Opéra Comique, strongly resisted by Bizet.
As an operatic heroine, Carmen surely paved the way for Salome and Lulu. Her carefree attitude is set out in her habanera, her powers of seduction emerge in the Seguidilla, but it’s the second half of the opera where her tragic grandeur fully blossoms. Célestine Galli-Marié sang the title role at the 1875 premiere. In 2023, Palazzetto Bru Zane delved into the archives to discover what that premiere may have looked like, with a production staged at Opéra de Rouen.
2L’Arlesienne
In 1872, Bizet composed incidental music for Alphonse Daudet’s play L’Arlesienne (The Girl from Arles) – 27 numbers including entr’actes, melodramas and dances. The play flopped, but Bizet later took eight numbers, arranged them for large orchestra and fashioned them into two suites. Perhaps the most famous number is the Farandole, a popular dance in Provence.
3Symphony in C major
Bizet was only 17 when he composed the Symphony in C, a student assignment given to him by Gounod that fizzes with the precociousness of teenagers such as Mozart and Mendelssohn. It shares a similar flavour to Gounod’s own First Symphony… which Bizet had transcribed for two pianos, providing him with the perfect template. Bizet’s symphony was never performed during the composer’s lifetime. The manuscript was only discovered in 1933, in the library of the Paris Conservatoire, soon becoming an audience favourite.
4The Pearl Fishers
French opera in the 19th century was fascinated by Orientalism and Les Pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) stands in a long line of works set in the east, following hot on the heels of Gounod’s La reine de Saba and leading on to Délibes’ Lakmé. It is set in ancient Ceylon and tells the tale of two friends, Nadir and Zurga, whose friendship is tested by their love for the same woman – Leïla, a priestess sworn to chastity. Bizet’s music is ravishingly scored, but the highlight – and the reason why the opera has secured a foothold in the repertoire – is the Act 1 duet “Au fond du temple saint” made famous through a recording by Jüssi Björling and Robert Merrill.
5La Jolie Fille de Perth
To 19th-century composers, Scotland provided a different kind of exoticism (Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sylphide, Macbeth). Bizet’s La Jolie Fille de Perth was based on the 1828 novel The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Blacksmith Henry wants Cathérine to be his Valentine, but Mab, Queen of the Gypses, a nobleman (Le Duc de Rothsay) and a rose brooch complicate matters. The opera premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique on 26th December 1867 and was such a success that half the audience left a tip for the creators.
6Djamileh
Djamileh is a one-act opéra-comique (1872) to a libretto based on Alfred de Musset’s sensual oriental tale, Namouna (which Édouard Lalo and Lucien Petipa later used as the basis for their 1882 ballet). Prince Haroun has wearied of his slave-girl Djamileh and instructs his secretary to get rid of her, but Djamileh has fallen in love with Haroun and wins back his favour by disguising herself as a new recruit to his harem. Although it only ran for eleven performances, the work earned critical praise. “Djamileh, whatever its fortune may be, marks a new stage in the young master’s career… Let us give due praise to this laudable ambition.” (Ernest Reyer, Journal des débats)
7Jeux d’enfants
The charming Jeux d’enfants (Children’s Games) was a suite for piano four-hands in 1871. He later orchestrated six of the movements to create a Petite Suite. Movements titles include The Doll, The Spinning Top, Leap-Frog and a skittering galop finale, The Ball.
8Vasco da Gama
Bizet wrote his ode-symphonique while in Rome. It recounts the story of Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama’s 1497 expedition from Lisbon. Originally planned to be a much larger affair, Bizet only retained a third of his plan, in which the title role plays a very small role. It is Léonard, a coloratura soprano trouser role) who gets the lion’s share of the music, including a jolly boléro.
9Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe
Bizet wrote a number of songs during his brief career, mostly commissioned by the music publisher Choudens. Among the finest is Adieux de l’hôtesse arabe (Farewell of the Arabian Hostess), dedicated to the wife of Léon Carvalho, director of the Théâtre-Lyrique. It sets a poem by Victor Hugo depicting the departure of a white traveller from an Arabian hostess. She expresses her regret and reveals her unrequited love for him. “If you do not return, dream at times of the daughters of the desert, sweet-voiced sisters, who dance barefoot on the dunes…”
10Clovis et Clotilde
When Bizet won the Prix de Rome in 1857 (at his second attempt) it was setting a libretto by Amédée Burion imposed on the participants. The mystical subject was the religious conversion of Clovis I, King of the Franks, whose Queen, the Burgundian princess Clotilde, awaits his return with fervent prayer.
Palazzetto Bru Zane’s Georges Bizet: Portrait and Carmen: Historical staging are available now.
This article was sponsored by Palazzetto Bru Zane.
