GEORGES BIZET
His original name was Alexander-César-Leopold, but his family renamed him Georges two years after his birth. This name change would be a source of confusion and controversy for him for many years.
Georges Bizet was a musician born in Paris, France, on October 25th, 1838. In his family there were three musicians: his father, a singing teacher, his mother, a pianist and an uncle, also a singing teacher. When Bizet began to display a strong inclination towards music, they fostered his vocation without hesitation — guiding him in the opera and the piano.
A gifted musician, he entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the young age of 9 to study piano, where he obtained two prizes: one in 1851 and the next in 1852. In 1853 he began to study composition. At age 19 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata composition, Clovis and Clotilde (Clovis et Clotilde).
The award consisted of a five-year scholarship with the first two years spent in Rome, the third in Germany and the remaining two in Paris. The only condition was to present an original work annually, according to the requirements of the Académie.
At the age of 20 he wrote the opera buffa, Don Procopio — his first original opera — instead of the mass he was required to compose, and followed up with the symphonic poem, Vasco da Gama.
Enchanted by the beauty of Rome and its natural surrounds, he asked and obtained permission to spend the third year of his scholarship in Italy. Before the end of the year, however, he was back in Paris as his mother was seriously ill. She died a year later.
In Paris, Bizet wrote La Chasse d’Ossian and The Pearlfishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) — and received a lukewarm reception from the public. Nevertheless, Bizet continued to devote himself to stage music, composing the opera Ivan IV, based on the life of Ivan the Terrible.
In the autumn of 1867, he premiered the opera La Jolie Fille de Perth with great success. Some time later he presented the Roma Symphony and L’Arlésienne from Alphonse Daudet’s play — which left the public indifferent.
Very soon two Spanish themes fired Bizet’s imagination. One was El Cid — never completed. The other was the famous Carmen based on the Prosper Mérimée novella. Its premiere in 1875 was received with contemptuous coldness — but not with loud protests, so the work remained languidly on the posters.
On the day Carmen completed it’s thirty-third performance — June 3rd of that year — Bizet suddenly died in Bougival. He was 36 years old.
News of his death shifted French cultural opinion. Remorse began to be heard throughout Paris over the disheartening treatment his work had received, even as he lived a fruitful existence, never overwhelmed by unjust failures.
