Georges Bizet
Operas Le docteur Miracle (1857) Don Procopio (1859) Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) Ivan IV (1865) La jolie fille de Perth (1867) Djamileh (1872) Carmen (1875) Noé (completion of Halévy opera) (1885)
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Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, on 3 March 1875, and was not at first particularly successful; its initial run extended to 36 performances. Before this run was concluded, Bizet died suddenly, and thus knew nothing of the opera's later celebrity.

The opera, written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue, tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naive soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. José abandons his childhood sweetheart and deserts from his military duties, yet loses Carmen's love to the glamorous toreador Escamillo after which José kills her in a jealous rage. The depictions of proletarian life, immorality and lawlessness, and the tragic outcome in which the main character dies on stage, broke new ground in French opera and were highly controversial. After the premiere most reviews were critical, and the French public was generally indifferent. Carmen initially gained its reputation through a series of productions outside France, and was not revived in Paris until 1883; thereafter it rapidly acquired celebrity at home and abroad, and continues to be one of the most frequently performed operas; the "toreador's song" from Act 2 is among the best known of all operatic arias. Later commentators have asserted that Carmen forms the bridge between the tradition of opéra comique and the realism or verismo that characterised late 19th-century Italian opera.

The music of Carmen has been widely acclaimed for its brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere and orchestration, and for the skill with which Bizet represented musically the emotions and suffering of his characters. After the composer's death the score was subject to significant amendment, including the introduction of recitative in place of the original dialogue; there is no standard edition of the opera, and differences of view exist as to what versions best express Bizet's intentions. The opera has been recorded many times since the first acoustical recording in 1908, and the story has been the subject of a large number of screen and stage adaptions.

Background[link]

In the Paris of the 1860s, although he was a Prix de Rome laureate, Bizet struggled to get his stage works performed. The capital's two main state-funded opera houses—the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique—followed conservative repertoires which restricted opportunities for young native talent.^[1] Bizet's professional relationship with Léon Carvalho, manager of the independent Théâtre Lyrique company, enabled him to bring to the stage two full-scale operas, Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth (1867), but neither enjoyed much public success.^[2][3]

When artistic life in Paris resumed after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Bizet found wider opportunities for the performance of his works; his one-act opera Djamileh opened at the Opéra-Comique in May 1872. Although this failed and was withdrawn after 11 performances,^[4] it led to a further commission from the theatre, this time for a full-length opera for which Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy would provide the libretto.^[5] Halévy, who had written the text for Bizet's student opera Le docteur Miracle (1856), was a cousin of Bizet's wife, Geneviève;^[6] he and Meilhac had a solid reputation as the librettists of many of Jacques Offenbach's operettas.^[7]

Bizet was delighted with the Opéra-Comique commission, and expressed to his friend Edmund Galabert his satisfaction in "the absolute certainty of having found my path".^[5] The subject of the projected work was a matter of discussion between composer, librettists and the Opéra-Comique management; Adolphe de Leuven, on behalf of the theatre, made several suggestions that were politely rejected. It was Bizet who first proposed an adaptation of Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen.^[8] Mérimée's story is a blend of travelogue and adventure yarn, probably inspired by the writer's lengthy travels in Spain in 1830, and had originally been published in 1845 in the journal Revue des deux mondes.^[9] It may have been influenced in part by Alexander Pushkin's 1824 poem The Gypsies,^[10] a work which Mérimée had translated into French;^{[n 1]} it has also been suggested that the story was developed from an incident told to Mérimée by his friend the Countess Montijo.^[9] Bizet may first have encountered the story during his Rome sojourn of 1858–60, since his journals record Mérimée as one of the writers whose works he absorbed in those years.^[12]

Roles[link]

Galli-Marié as Carmen

• Cast details are as provided by Curtiss from the original piano and vocal score. The stage designs are credited to Charles Ponchard.^[13]

Synopsis[link]

Place: Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills

Time: Around 1820

Act 1

A square in Seville. On the right a door to the tobacco factory. At the back, a bridge. On the left, a guardhouse

A group of soldiers relaxes in the square, waiting for the change of guard and commenting on the passers-by ("Sur la place, chacun passe"). Micaëla appears, seeking José; Moralès tells her José is not yet on duty, and invites her to wait with them. She declines, saying she will return later. José arrives with the new guard, which is greeted and imitated by a crowd of urchins ("Avec la garde montante").

As the factory bell rings the cigarette girls emerge and exchange banter with young men in the crowd ("La cloche a sonné"). Carmen enters and sings provocatively of the untameable nature of love (habanera: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"). The men plead with her to choose a lover; after some teasing she throws a flower to Don José, who thus far has been ignoring her but is now annoyed by her insolence.

As the women go back to the factory, Micaëla returns and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother ("Parle-moi de ma mère!"). In this he reads that his mother wants him to return home and marry Micaëla, who on learning this retreats in shy embarrassment. As José declares that he is ready to heed his mother's wishes, the women stream from the factory in great agitation. Zuniga, the officer of the guard, learns that Carmen has attacked a woman with a knife; when challenged, Carmen answers with mocking defiance ("Tra la la ... Coupe-moi, brûle-moi"); Zuniga orders José to tie her hands while he prepares the prison warrant. Left alone with José, Carmen beguiles him with a seguidilla, ("Près des remparts de Séville"), in which she sings of a night of dancing and passion with her lover—whoever that may be—in Lillas Pastia's tavern. Confused yet mesmerised, José agrees to free her hands; as she is led away she pushes her escort to the ground and runs off laughing. José is arrested for dereliction of duty.

Act 2

Lillas Pastia's inn

A month has passed. Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès are entertaining Zuniga and other officers ("Les tringles des sistres tintaient") in Pastia's inn; Carmen is delighted to learn of José's release from a month's detention. Outside, a chorus and procession announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Toréro"). Invited inside, he introduces himself with his signature song ("Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre"), and sets his sights on Carmen who brushes him aside. Lillas Pastia hustles the crowds and the soldiers away.

When only Carmen, Frasquita and Mercédès remain, the smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado arrive and reveal their plans to dispose of their recently acquired contraband ("Nous avons en tête une affaire"). Frasquita and Mercédès are keen to help them, but Carmen refuses as she wishes to wait for José. After the smugglers leave, José arrives; Carmen treats him to a private exotic dance ("Je vais danser en votre honneur ... Lalala"), but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When José says he must return to duty she mocks him; he answers by showing her the flower that she threw to him in the square ("La fleur que tu m'avais jetée"). Unconvinced, Carmen demands he shows his love by leaving with her. José refuses to desert, but as he prepares to depart Zuniga enters, looking for Carmen. He and José fight, and are separated by the returning smugglers who restrain Zuniga. Having attacked a superior officer, José now has no choice but to join Carmen and the smugglers ("Suis-nous à travers la campagne").

Act 3

A wild spot in the mountains

Carmen and José enter with the smugglers and their booty ("Écoute, écoute, compagnons"); Carmen has now become bored with José, and tells him scornfully he should go back to his mother. Frasquita and Mercédès amuse themselves by reading their fortunes from the cards; Carmen joins them, and finds that the cards are foretelling her death, and José's. The women depart to suborn the customs officers who are watching the locality, while José is placed on guard duty.

Micaëla enters with a guide, seeking José and determined to rescue him from Carmen ("Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante"). On hearing a gunshot she hides in fear; it is José, who has fired at an intruder who proves to be Escamillo. José's pleasure at meeting the bullfighter turns to anger when Escamillo declares his infatuation with Carmen. The pair fight, but are interrupted by the returning smugglers and girls ("Holà, holà José"). As Escamillo leaves he invites everyone to his next bullfight in Seville. Micaëla is discovered; at first, José will not leave with her despite Carmen's mockery, but he agrees to go when told that his mother is dying. As he departs, vowing he will return, Escamillo is heard in the distance, singing the toreador's song.

Act 4

A square in Seville. At the back, the walls of an ancient amphitheatre

Zuniga, Frasquita and Mercédès are among the crowd awaiting the arrival of the bullfighters. Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their mutual love ("Si tu m'aimes, Carmen"). As Escamillo goes into the arena Frasquita warns Carmen that José is nearby, but Carmen is unafraid and willing to speak to him. Alone, she is confronted by the desperate José ("C'est toi! C'est moi!"). While he pleads vainly for her to return to him, cheers are heard from the arena. As José makes his last entreaty, Carmen contemptuously throws down the ring he gave her and attempts to enter the arena. He then stabs her, and as Escamillo is acclaimed by the crowds, Carmen dies. José kneels and sings "Ah! Carmen! ma Carmen adorée!"; as the crowd exits the arena, José confesses to killing the woman he loved.

Creation[link]

Writing history[link]

Pencil sketch of Ludovic Halévy, who with Henri Meilhac wrote the libretto for Carmen

Meilhac and Halévy were a long-standing duo with an established division of labour: Meilhac, who was completely unmusical, wrote the dialogue and Halévy the verses.^[14] There is no clear indication of when work began on Carmen.^[15] Bizet and the two librettists were all in Paris during 1873 and easily able to meet; thus there is little written record or correspondence relating to the beginning of the collaboration.^[16] The libretto was prepared in accordance with the conventions of opéra comique, with dialogue separating musical numbers.^{[n 2]} The libretto deviates from Mérimée's novella in a number of important respects. In the original, events are spread over a much longer period of time, and much of the main story is narrated by José from his prison cell, as he awaits execution for Carmen's murder. Micaëla does not feature in Mérimée's version, and the Escamillo character is peripheral—a picador named Lucas who is only briefly Carmen's grand passion. Carmen has a husband called Garcia, whom José kills during a quarrel.^[18] In the novella, Carmen and José are presented much less sympathetically than they are in the opera; biographer Mina Curtiss comments that Mérimée's Carmen, on stage, would have seemed "an unmitigated and unconvincing monster, had her character not been simplified and deepened".^[19]

With rehearsals due to begin in October 1873, Bizet began composing in or around January of that year, and by the summer had completed the music for the first act and perhaps sketched more. At that point, according to Bizet's biographer Winton Dean, "some hitch at the Opéra-Comique intervened", and the project was suspended for a while.^[20] One reason for the delay may have been the difficulties in finding a singer for the title role.^[21] Another was a split that developed between the joint directors of the theatre, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven, over the advisability of staging the work. De Leuven had vociferously opposed the entire notion of presenting so risqué a story in what he considered a family theatre and was sure that audiences would be frightened away. He was assured by Halévy that the story would be toned down, that Carmen's character would be softened, and offset by Micaëla, described by Halévy as "a very innocent, very chaste young girl". Furthermore, the gypsies would be presented as comic characters, and Carmen's death would be overshadowed at the end by "triumphal processions, ballets and joyous fanfares". De Leuven reluctantly agreed, but his continuing hostility towards the project led to his resignation from the theatre early in 1874.^[22]

After the various delays, Bizet appears to have resumed work on Carmen early in 1874. He completed the draft of the composition—1,200 pages of music—in the summer, which he spent at the artists' colony at Bougival, just outside Paris. He was pleased with the result, informing a friend: "I have written a work that is all clarity and vivacity, full of colour and melody".^[23] During the period of rehearsals, which began in October, Bizet repeatedly altered the music—sometimes at the request of the orchestra who found some of it impossible to perform,^[21] sometimes to meet the demands of individual singers, and otherwise in response to the demands of the theatre's management.^[24] The vocal score that Bizet published in March 1875 shows significant changes from the version of the score that he sold to the publishers, Choudens, in January 1875; the conducting score used at the premiere differs from each of these documents. There is no definitive edition, and there are differences among musicologists about which version represents the composer's true intentions.^[21][25] Bizet also changed the libretto, reordering sequences and imposing his own verses where he felt that the librettists had strayed too far from the character of Mérimée's original.^[26] Among other changes he provided new words for Carmen's habanera,^[25] and rewrote the text of Carmen's solo in the Act 3 card scene. He also provided a new opening line for the seguidilla in Act 1.^[27]

Characterisation[link]

Most of the characters in Carmen—the soldiers, the smugglers, the gypsy women and the secondary leads Micaëla and Escamillo—are reasonably familiar types within the opéra comique tradition, although drawing them from proletarian life was unusual.^[15] The two principals, José and Carmen, lie outside the genre. While each is presented quite differently from Mérimée's portrayals of a murderous brigand and a treacherous, amoral schemer,^[19] even in their relatively sanitised forms neither corresponds to the norms of opéra comique. They are more akin to the verismo style that would find fuller expression in the works of Puccini.^[28]

Dean suggests that José is the central figure of the opera: "It is his fate rather than Carmen's that interests us".^[29] The music characterises his gradual decline, act by act, from honest soldier to deserter, vagabond and finally murderer.^[21] In Act 1 he is a simple countryman aligned musically with Micaëla; in Act 2 he evinces a greater toughness, the result of his experiences as a prisoner, but it is clear that by the end of the act his infatuation with Carmen has driven his emotions beyond control. Dean describes him in Act 3 as a trapped animal who refuses to leave his cage even when the door is opened for him, ravaged by a mix of conscience, jealousy and despair. In the final act his music assumes a grimness and purposefulness that reflects his new fatalism: "He will make one more appeal; if Carmen refuses, he knows what to do".^[29]

Carmen herself, says Dean, is a new type of operatic heroine representing a new kind of love, not the innocent kind associated with the "spotless soprano" school, but something altogether more vital and dangerous. Her capriciousness, fearlessness and love of freedom are all musically represented: "She is redeemed from any suspicion of vulgarity by her qualities of courage and fatalism so vividly realised in the music".^[21][30] Curtiss suggests that Carmen's character, spiritually and musically, may be a realisation of the composer's own unconscious longing for a freedom denied to him by his stifling marriage.^[31] Harold Schonberg likens Carmen to "a female Don Giovanni. She would rather die than be false to herself".^[32] The dramatic personality of the character, and the range of moods she is required to express, call for exceptional acting and singing talents. This has deterred some of opera's most distinguished exponents; Maria Callas, though she recorded the part, never performed it on stage.^[33] The musicologist Hugh Macdonald observes that "French opera never produced another femme as fatale as Carmen", though she may have influenced some of Massenet's heroines. Macdonald suggests that outside the French repertoire, Richard Strauss's Salome and Alban Berg's Lulu "may be seen as distant degenerate descendants of Bizet’s temptress".^[34]

Bizet was reportedly contemptuous of the music that he wrote for Escamillo: "Well, they asked for ordure, and they've got it", he is said to have remarked about the toreador's song—but, as Dean comments, "the triteness lies in the character, not in the music".^[29] Micaëla's music has been criticised for its "Gounodesque" elements, although Dean maintains that her music has greater vitality than that of any of Gounod's own heroines.^[35]

Performance history[link]

Assembling the cast[link]

The search for a singer-actress to play Carmen began in the summer of 1873. Press speculation favoured Zulma Bouffar, who was perhaps the librettists' preferred choice. She had sung leading roles in many of Offenbach's operas, but she was unacceptable to Bizet and was turned down by du Locle as unsuitable.^[36] In September an approach was made to Marie Roze, well known for previous triumphs at the Opéra-Comique, the Opéra and in London. She refused the part when she learned that she would be required to die on stage.^[37] The role was then offered to Célestine Galli-Marié, who agreed to terms with du Locle after several months' negotiation.^[38] Galli-Marié, a demanding and at times tempestuous performer, would prove a staunch ally of Bizet, often supporting his resistance to demands from the management that the work should be toned down.^[39] At the time it was generally believed that she and the composer were conducting a love affair during the months of rehearsal.^[15]

The leading tenor part of Don José was given to Paul Lhérie, a rising star of the Opéra-Comique who had recently appeared in works by Massenet and Delibes. He would later become a baritone, and in 1887 sang the role of Zurga in the Covent Garden premiere of Les pêcheurs de perles.^[40] Jacques Bouhy, engaged to sing Escamillo, was a young Belgian-born baritone who had already appeared in demanding roles such as Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust and as Mozart's Figaro.^[41] Marguerite Chapuy, who sang Micaëla, was at the beginning of a short career in which she was briefly a star at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; the impresario James H. Mapleson thought her "one of the most charming vocalists it has been my pleasure to know". However, she married and left the stage altogether in 1876, refusing Mapleson's considerable cash inducements to return.^[42]

Premiere and initial run[link]

A lithograph of Carmen Act 1

Because rehearsals did not start until October 1874 and lasted longer than anticipated, the premiere was delayed.^[43] The final rehearsals went well, and in a generally optimistic mood the first night was fixed for 3 March, the day on which, coincidentally, Bizet's appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour was formally announced.^{[n 3]} The premiere, which was conducted by Adolphe Deloffre, was attended by many of Paris's leading musical figures, including Massenet, Offenbach, Delibes and Gounod;^[45] during the performance the last-named was overheard complaining bitterly that Bizet had stolen the music of Micaëla's Act 3 aria from him: "That melody is mine!"^[46] Halévy recorded his impressions of the premiere in a letter to a friend; the first act was evidently well-received, with applause for the main numbers and numerous curtain calls. The first part of Act 2 also went well, but after the toreador's song there was, Halévy noted, "coldness". In Act 3 only Micaëla's aria earned applause as the audience became increasingly disconcerted. The final act was "glacial from first to last", and Bizet was left only with the consolations of a few friends.^[45] The critic Ernest Newman wrote later that the sentimentalist Opéra-Comique audience was "shocked by the drastic realism of the action" and by the low standing and defective morality of most of the characters.^[47] According to the composer Benjamin Godard, Bizet retorted, in response to a compliment, "Don't you see that all these bourgeois have not understood a wretched word of the work I have written for them?"^[48] However, shortly after the work had concluded, Massenet sent Bizet a congratulatory note: "How happy you must be at this time—it's a great success!".^[49]

The general tone of the next day's press reviews ranged from disappointment to outrage. The more conservative critics complained about "Wagnerism" and the subordination of the voice to the noise of the orchestra.^[50] There was consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue;^[51] Galli-Marié's interpretation of the role was described by one critic as "the very incarnation of vice".^[50] Others compared the work unfavourably with the traditional Opéra-Comique repertoire of Auber and Boieldieu. Léon Escudier in L'Art Musical called Carmen's music "dull and obscure ... the ear grows weary of waiting for the cadence that never comes".^[52] It seemed that Bizet had generally failed to fulfil expectations, both of those who (given Halévy's and Meilhac's past associations) had expected something in the Offenbach mould, and of critics such as Adolphe Jullien who had anticipated a Wagnerian music drama. Among the few supportive critics was the poet Théodore de Banville; writing in Le National, he applauded Bizet for presenting a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets".^[53]

In its initial run at the Opéra-Comique, Carmen provoked little public enthusiasm; it shared the theatre for a while with Verdi's much more popular Requiem.^[54] Carmen was often performed to half-empty houses, even when the management gave away large numbers of tickets.^[21] Early on 3 June, the day after the opera's 33rd performance, Bizet died suddenly of heart disease, at the age of 36. That night's performance was cancelled; the tragic circumstances brought a temporary increase in public interest during the brief period before the season ended.^[15] Du Locle brought Carmen back in November 1875, with the original cast, and it ran for a further 12 performances until 15 February 1876 to give a year's total for the original production of 48.^[55] Among those who attended one of these later performance was Tchaikovsky, who wrote to his benefactor, Nadezhda von Meck: "Carmen is a masterpiece in every sense of the word ... one of those rare creations which expresses the efforts of a whole musical epoch".^[56] After the final performance, Carmen was not seen in Paris again until 1883.^[21]

Early revivals[link]

Shortly before his death Bizet signed a contract for a production of Carmen by the Vienna Court Opera. For this version, first staged on 23 October 1875, Bizet's friend Ernest Guiraud replaced the original dialogue with recitatives, to create a "grand opera" format. Guiraud also reorchestrated music from Bizet's L'Arlésienne suite to provide a spectacular ballet for Carmen's second act.^[57] However, just before the initial Vienna performance the Court Opera's director Franz von Jauner decided to use parts of the original dialogue along with some of Guiraud's recitatives; this hybrid and the full recitative version became the norms for productions of the opera outside France for most of the next century.^[58]

Despite its deviations from Bizet's original and some critical reservations, the 1875 Vienna production was a great success with the city's public, and won praise from both Wagner and Brahms—the latter reportedly saw the opera 20 times, and said that he would have "gone to the ends of the earth to embrace Bizet".^[57] The Viennese triumph began the opera's rapid ascent towards worldwide fame. In February 1876 it began a run in Brussels at La Monnaie; it returned there the following year, with Galli-Marié in the title role, and thereafter became a permanent fixture in the Brussels repertory. On 17 June 1878 Carmen was produced in London, at Her Majesty's Theatre, where Minnie Hauk began her long association with the part of Carmen. A parallel London production at Covent Garden, with Adelina Patti, was cancelled when Patti withdrew. The successful Her Majesty's production, sung in Italian, had an equally enthusiastic reception in Dublin. On 23 October 1878 the opera received its American premiere, at the New York Academy of Music, and in the same year was introduced to St Petersburg.^[55]

In the following five years performances were given in numerous American and European cities, the opera finding particular favour in Germany, where the Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, apparently saw it on 27 different occasions and where Friedrich Nietzsche opined that he "became a better man when Bizet speaks to me".^[59][60] Carmen was also acclaimed in numerous French provincial cities including Marseilles, Lyon and, in 1881, Dieppe, where Galli-Marié returned to the role. In August 1881 the singer wrote to Bizet's widow to report that Carmen's Spanish premiere, in Barcelona, had been "another great success".^[61] But Carvalho, who had assumed the management of the Opéra-Comique, thought the work immoral and refused to reinstate it. Meilhac and Hálevy were more prepared to countenance a revival, provided that Galli-Marié had no part in it; they blamed her interpretation for the relative failure of the opening run.^[60]

In April 1883 Carvalho finally revived Carmen at the Opéra-Comique, with Adèle Isaac featuring in an under-rehearsed production that removed some of the controversial aspects of the original. Carvalho was roundly condemned by the critics for offering a travesty of what had come to be regarded as a masterpiece of French opera; nevertheless, this version was acclaimed by the public and played to full houses. In October Carvalho yielded to pressure and revised the production; he brought back Galli-Marié, and restored the score and libretto to their 1875 forms.^[62]

Worldwide success[link]

Carmen at the New York Met in 1915; a publicity photograph that shows the three principal stars: Geraldine Farrar, Enrico Caruso and Pasquale Amato

On 9 January 1884 Carmen was given its first New York Metropolitan Opera performance, to a mixed critical reception. The New York Times welcomed Bizet's "pretty and effective work", but compared Zelia Trebelli's interpretation of the title role unfavourably with that of Minnie Hauk. Thereafter Carmen was quickly incorporated into the Met's regular repertory. In February 1906 Enrico Caruso sang José at the Met for the first time; he continued to perform in this role until 1919, two years before his death.^[63] On 17 April 1906, on tour with the Met, he sang the role at the Grand Opera House in San Francisco. Afterwards he sat up until 3 am reading the reviews in the early editions of the following day's papers.^[64] Two hours later he was awakened by the first violent shocks of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, after which he and his fellow performers made a hurried escape from the Palace Hotel.^[65]

The popularity of Carmen continued through succeeding generations of American opera-goers; by the beginning of 2011 the Met alone had performed it almost a thousand times.^[63] It enjoyed similar success in other American cities and in all parts of the world, in many different languages.^[66] The toreador's song "Votre toast" from Act 2 has become one of the most popular and best-known of all operatic arias,^[67] "a splendid piece of swagger" according to Newman, "against which the voices and the eyebrows of purists have long been raised in vain".^[68] Most of the productions outside France followed the example created in Vienna and incorporated lavish ballet interludes and other spectacles, a practice which Mahler abandoned in Vienna when he revived the work there in 1900.^[47] However, in 1919 Bizet's then-aged contemporary Camille Saint-Saens was still complaining about the "strange idea" of adding a ballet, which he considered "a hideous blemish in that masterpiece", and he wondered why Bizet's widow, at that time still living, permitted it.^[69]

At the Opéra-Comique, after its 1883 revival, Carmen was always presented in the dialogue version with minimal musical embellishments.^[70] By 1888, the year of the 50th anniversary of Bizet's birth, the opera had been performed there 330 times;^[66] by 1938, his centenary year, the total of performances at the theatre had reached 2,271.^[71] However, outside France the practice of using recitatives remained the norm for many years; the Carl Rosa Opera Company's 1947 London production, and Walter Felsenstein's 1949 staging at the Berlin Komische Oper, are among the first known instances in which the dialogue version was used other than in France.^[70][72] Neither of these innovations led to much change in practice; a similar experiment was tried at Covent Garden in 1953 but hurriedly withdrawn, and the first American production with spoken dialogue, in Colorado in 1953, met with a similar fate.^[70] Carmen's popularity has endured into the 21st century; according to Macdonald: "The memorability of Bizet’s tunes will keep the music of Carmen alive in perpetuity", and its status as a popular classic is unchallenged by any other French opera.^[34]

Dean has commented on the dramatic distortions that arise from the suppression of the dialogue; the effect, he says, is that the action moves forward "in a series of jerks, rather instead of by smooth transition", and that most of the minor characters are substantially diminished.^[70][73] Only late in the 20th century did dialogue versions become common in opera houses outside France, but there is still no universally recognised full score. Fritz Oeser's 1964 edition is an attempt to fill this gap, but in Dean's view is unsatisfactory. Oeser reintroduces material removed by Bizet during the first rehearsals, and ignores many of the late changes and improvements that the composer made immediately before the first performance;^[21] he thus, according to the analyst Susan McClary, "inadvertently preserves as definitive an early draft of the opera".^[25] In the early 21st century new editions were prepared by Robert Didion and Richard Langham-Smith, published by Schott and Peters respectively.^[74] Each departs significantly from Bizet's vocal score of March 1875, published during his lifetime after he had personally corrected the proofs; Dean believes that this vocal score should be the basis of any standard edition.^[21] Lesley Wright, a contemporary Bizet scholar, remarks that, unlike his compatriots Rameau and Debussy, Bizet has not been accorded a critical edition of his principal works;^[75] should this transpire, she says, "we might expect yet another scholar to attempt to refine the details of this vibrant score which has so fascinated the public and performers for more than a century".^[74]

Music[link]

Hervé Lacombe, in his survey of 19th century French opera, contends that Carmen is one of the few works from that large repertory to have stood the test of time.^[76] While he places the opera firmly within the long opéra comique tradition,^[77] Macdonald considers that it transcends the genre and that its immortality is assured by "the combination in abundance of striking melody, deft harmony and perfectly judged orchestration".^[15] Dean sees Bizet's principal achievement in the demonstration of the main actions of the opera in the music, rather than in the dialogue, writing that "Few artists have expressed so vividly the torments inflicted by sexual passions and jealousy". Dean places Bizet's realism in a different category from the verismo of Puccini and others; he likens the composer to Mozart and Verdi in his ability to engage his audiences with the emotions and sufferings of his characters.^[21]

Bizet, who had never visited Spain, sought out appropriate ethnic material to provide an authentic Spanish flavour to his music.^[21] Carmen's habanera is based on an idiomatic song, "El Arreglito", by the Spanish-American composer Sebastián Iradier (1809–65).^{[n 4]} Bizet had taken this to be a genuine folk melody; when he learned its recent origin he added a note to the vocal score, crediting Iradier.^[79] He used a genuine folksong as the source of Carmen's defiant "Coupe-moi, brûle-moi" while other parts of the score, notably the seguidilla, utilise the rhythms and instrumentation associated with flamenco music. However, Dean insists that "[t]his is a French, not a Spanish opera"; the "foreign bodies", while they undoubtedly contribute to the unique atmosphere of the opera, form only a small ingredient of the complete music.^[78]

	Prelude to Act 1 The Damrosch Orchestra (1903)
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The Act 1 prelude combines three recurrent themes: the entry of the bullfighters from Act 3, the refrain from the toreador's song from Act 2, and the motif that, in two slightly differing forms, represents both Carmen herself and the fate that she personifies.^{[n 5]} This motif, played on clarinet, bassoon, cornet and cellos over tremolo strings, concludes the prelude with an abrupt crescendo.^[78][80] When the curtain rises a light and sunny atmosphere is soon established, and pervades the opening scenes. The mock solemnities of the changing of the guard, and the flirtatious exchanges between the townsfolk and the factory girls, precede a mood change when a brief phrase from the fate motif announces Carmen's entrance. After her provocative habanera, with its persistent insidious rhythm and changes of key, the fate motif sounds in full when Carmen throws her flower to José before departing.^[81] This action elicits from José a passionate A major solo that Dean suggests is the turning-point in his musical characterisation.^[29] The softer vein returns briefly, as Micaëla reappears and joins with José in a duet to a warm clarinet and strings accompaniment. The tranquillity is shattered by the women's noisy quarrel, Carmen's dramatic re-entry and her defiant interaction with Zuniga. After her beguiling seguidilla provokes José to an exasperated high A sharp shout, Carmen's escape is preceded by the brief but disconcerting reprise of a fragment from the habanera.^[78][81] Bizet revised this finale several times to increase its dramatic effect.^[25]

Chanson du toréador (Toreador Song) Pasquale Amato (1911)

Act 2 begins with a short prelude, based on a melody that José will sing, offstage before his next entry.^[29] A festive scene in the inn precedes Escamillo's tumultuous entrance and his famous song, in which brass and percussion provide prominent backing while the crowd sings along.^[67] The quintet that follows is described by Newman as "of incomparable verve and musical wit".^[82] José's appearance precipitates a long mutual wooing scene; Carmen sings, dances and plays the castanets; a distant cornet-call summoning José to duty is blended with Carmen's melody so as to be barely discernible.^[83] A muted reference to the fate motif on an English horn leads to José's "flower aria", a flowing continuous melody that ends pianissimo on a sustained high B-flat.^[84] José's insistence that, despite Carmen's blandishments, he must return to duty leads to a quarrel; the arrival of Zuniga, the consequent fight and José's unavoidable ensnarement into the lawless life culminates musically in the triumphant hymn to freedom that closes the act.^[67]

Entr'acte to Act 3

The Act 3 prelude was originally intended for Bizet's L'Arlésienne score. Newman describes it as "an exquisite miniature, with much dialoguing and intertwining between the woodwind instruments".^[85] As the action unfolds, the tension between Carmen and José is evident in the music. In the card scene, the lively duet for Frasquita and Mercédès turns ominous when Carmen intervenes; the fate motif underlines her premonition of death. Micaëla's aria, after her entry in search of José, is a conventional piece, though of deep feeling, preceded and concluded by horn calls.^[86] The middle part of the act is occupied by Escamillo and José, now acknowledged as rivals for Carmen's favour. The music reflects their contrasting attitudes: Escamillo remains, says Newman, "invincibly polite and ironic", while José is sullen and aggressive.^[87] When Micaëla pleads with José to go with her to his mother, the harshness of Carmen's music reveals her most unsympathetic side. As José departs, vowing to return, the fate theme is heard briefly in the woodwind.^[88] The confident, off-stage sound of the departing Escamillo singing the toreador's refrain provides a distinct contrast to José's increasing desperation.^[86]

Entr'acte to Act 4

The brief final act is prefaced with a lively orchestral piece derived from Manuel García's short operetta El Criado Fingido.^[78] After the opening crowd scene the bullfighters' march is led by the children's chorus; the crowd hails Escamillo before his short love scene with Carmen.^[89] The long finale, in which José makes his last pleas to Carmen and is decisively rejected, is punctuated at critical moments by enthusiastic off-stage shouts from the bullfighting arena. As José kills Carmen the chorus sing the refrain of the Toreador’s song off-stage; the fate motif, which has been suggestively present at various points during the act, is heard fortissimo, together with a brief reference to Carmen's card scene music.^[25] Jose's last words of love and despair are followed by a final long chord, on which the curtain falls without further musical or vocal comment.^[90]

Musical numbers[link]

Numbers are from the Vocal Score (English version) printed by G. Schirmer Inc., New York, 1958 from Giraud's 1875 arrangement.

Recordings and adaptations[link]

Carmen has been the subject of many recordings, beginning with a nearly complete performance in German from 1908 with Emmy Destinn in the title role,^[91] and complete 1911 Opéra-Comique recording in French. Since then, many of the leading opera houses and artistes have recorded the work, in both studio and live performances.^[92] Over the years many versions have been commended and reissued.^[93][94] From the mid-1990s numerous video recordings have become available. These include David McVicar's Glyndebourne production of 2002, and the Royal Opera productions of 2007 and 2010, each designed by Francesca Zambello.^[92]

Ferruccio Busoni's 1920 piece Piano Sonatina No. 6 (Fantasia da camera super Carmen) is based on themes from Carmen. In 1967 the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin adapted parts of the Carmen music into a ballet, the Carmen Suite, written specifically for his wife Maya Plisetskaya, then the Bolshoi Ballet's principal ballerina.^[95][96]

The character "Carmen" has been the constant subject of film treatment since the earliest days of cinema. Researchers at Newcastle University's Centre for Research into Film and Media have identified more than 70 films, including at least 40 silent features, which are based on the Carmen story. Many of these depart from the opera's storyline, though all retain the broad themes of jealousy and tragic, thwarted love.^[97] The films range across many languages and cultures, and have been created by prominent directors including Raoul Walsh, Otto Preminger and Jean-Luc Godard. Preminger's Carmen Jones (1954) was adapted from a 1943 Broadway musical of the same name. The story is transposed to 1940s Chicago, and employs an all-black cast.^[98] Francesco Rosi's film of 1984, with Julia Migenes and Plácido Domingo, is generally faithful to the original story and to Bizet's music.^[99] Robert Townsend's 2001 film, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring Beyoncé Knowles, is a more recent attempt to create an African-American version.^[100]

Notes and references[link]

Notes

Citations

Sources

• Azaola, Juan Ramon (ed.) (2003). A Season of Opera on DVD:, Part 4: Carmen. Madrid: Del Prado publishers. ISBN 84-9798-071-9. 
• Bizet, Georges (1958). Carmen: Opera in Four Acts. New York: G. Schirmer. OCLC 475327. http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/aaz2552/large/index.html.  (Vocal score, with words provided in English and French, based on the 1875 arrangement of Ernest Giraud)
• Curtiss, Mina (1959). Bizet and his World. London: Secker & Warburg. OCLC 505162968. 
• Dean, Winton (1965). Georges Bizet: His Life and Work. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. OCLC 643867230. 
• Dean, Winton (1980). "Bizet, Georges (Alexandre César Léopold)". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-23111-2. 
• Lacombe, Hervé (2001). The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21719-5. http://books.google.com/?id=SQOZG847ylAC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=comme+autrefois+dans+la+nuit+sombre#v=onepage&q=comme%20autrefois%20dans%20la%20nuit%20sombre&f=false. 
• McClary, Susan (1992). George Bizet: Carmen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39897-5. http://books.google.com/?id=UNGaPmlHFzgC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Lesley+Wright+Bizet#v=onepage&q=Lesley%20Wright%20Bizet&f=false. 
• Neef, Sigrid (ed.) (2000). Opera: Composers, Works, Performers (English edition). Cologne: Könemann. ISBN 3-8290-3571-3. 
• Newman, Ernest (1958). Great Operas Volume 1. New York: Vintage Books. OCLC 592622247. 
• Nietzsche, Friedrich; Ludovici, Anthony M. (trans.) (1911). The Case Of Wagner (Vol. 8 in The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche). London and Edinburgh: T.N. Foulis. OCLC 418505. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25012/25012-h/25012-h.html. 
• Schonberg, Harold C. (1975). The Lives of the Great Composers: Volume 2. London: Futura Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-86007-723-3. 
• Steen, Michael (2003). The Life and Times of the Great Composers. London: Icon Books. ISBN 978-1-84046-679-9. 
• Weinstock, Herbert (1946). Tchaikovsky. London: Cassel. OCLC 397644. 
• Winchester, Simon (2005). A Crack in the Edge of the World. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-101634-5. 
• Wright, Lesley a. (2000). "Introduction: Looking at the Sources and Editions of Bizet's Carmen". In Dibbern, Mary. Carmen: A Performance Guide. New York: Pendragon Press. ISBN 1-57647-032-6. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=k0TXMzG2TZMC&pg=PR17&lpg=PR17&dq=carmen+oeser+edition#v=onepage&q=carmen%20oeser%20edition&f=false. 

External links[link]

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Carmen (opéra)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carmen

• Carmen: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project These include:-

• Full orchestral score, Choudens 1877 (republished by Könemann, 1994)
• Full orchestral score, Peters 1920 (republished by Kalmus, 1987)
• Vocal score, Choudens 1875

• Full libretto Vo / En
• Carmen Filmography, an online resource documenting film versions of the Carmen story, hosted by AHDS Performing Arts
• Link to Project Gutenberg edition of Carmen by Prosper Mérimée (1845)

Angela Gheorghiu (Romanian pronunciation: [anˈd͡ʒela ɡe̯orˈɡi.u] ( listen); born Angela Burlacu September 7, 1965) ^[1] is a Romanian soprano. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has performed in the leading roles of several operas at New York's Metropolitan Opera, London's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States. She has a substantial discography primarily with EMI Classics and Decca.

Angela Gheorghiu, March 2012

Biography[link]

Gheorghiu was born in 1965 in Adjud, Romania. Along with her sister Elena Dan, she sang opera music from an early age.^[2] At age 14, Gheorghiu began to study singing at the National University of Music Bucharest, primarily under Mia Barbu. Her graduation in 1990 coincided with the overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu the previous year, enabling her to seek an international career immediately. Her professional opera debut took place at the Cluj-Napoca Romanian National Opera as Mimì in La bohème in 1990, the same year she won the Belvedere International Competition.^[3]

Gheorghiu made her international debut in 1992 at the Royal Opera House as Zerlina in Don Giovanni.^[4] She debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Adina in L'elisir d'amore and at the Metropolitan Opera as Mimì in La bohème.^[5] In 1994, she was auditioned by the conductor Sir Georg Solti for a new production of La traviata at the Royal Opera House. Her debut as Violetta led her to international stardom.

Gheorghiu has concentrated her repertoire on several different roles: Violetta, Mimì, Magda, Adina, and Juliette. In 2003, she debuted as Nedda in Pagliacci and as Marguerite in Faust. A soprano with a large range and a dark coloured voice,^[6] Gheorghiu is also able to sing spinto roles. She has recorded Tosca (also made into a film in 2001, directed by the French director Benoît Jacquot) and Leonora in Il trovatore for EMI and sang in her first Tosca at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2006. Her performance was an overall success, although because the famous Zeffirelli production of 1964 was replaced by a new production (which premiered with her), there was comparison between the Toscas of Gheorghiu and Maria Callas, for whom the Zeffirelli production was designed.

Gheorghiu took part in many concerts, singing alone or together with her colleagues. Among the most important ones, the reopening of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (1999) and Teatro Malibran in Venice (2001) and at the opening the new Opera House in Valencia, in the presence of the Queen Sofia of Spain (2005). She sang at the "Prom at the Palace" (2002), the event that marked the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a concert that is available on DVD. She also sung at the Queen Beatrix's Jubilee Gala in Amsterdam (2005), at the New Year's Eve Concert at Palais Garnier in Paris (2006), at the "Met Summer Concert" in Prospect Park, New York (2008) or at the Memorial Concert for Luciano Pavarotti in Petra (2008). In 2009, Gheorghiu was invited to honor Grace Bumbry during the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors, in Washington, DC. She performed "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca in the presence of Barack Obama, the president of the United States.^[7]

In December 2000, Gheorghiu performed the title role in the film Tosca, directed by Benoit Jacquot, together with Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi.^[8] One year later, in 2002, Gheorghiu interpreted Juliette in the movie Roméo et Juliette, alongside Roberto Alagna and Tito Beltrán, also released on DVD.^[9]

In November 2010 Gheorghiu made her debut in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, a new production of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Observer wrote: "It's hard to imagine anyone bettering Angela Gheorghiu in this part. Her voice, feather-light and creamy yet with a core of steel, matches the liquid way she moves on stage. She's a natural actress and made the improbable death scene heartbreakingly believable and her signature aria "Poveri fiori" simply unforgettable."^[10] The Telegraph wrote: "Adriana is known as a nice, easy sing for ageing or challenged prima donnas (no difficult top notes, and a tame orchestra), so Gheorghiu, in her vocal prime, should have found it a doddle. But her first aria was bumpy and nervous, and she fudged the end of the second. Elsewhere, in duet and declamation, she often sang exquisitely."^[11]

In July 2011 Gheorghiu sang the title role in Tosca at the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano, and the following September returned there for the revival of Faust, which was broadcast live in cinemas all over the world. In April 2012, she appeared for the first time at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, in a concert of duets with Roberto Alagna.^[12]

Awards and honors[link]

She has recorded many recital albums and complete opera recordings and often appears on television and in concerts. The EMI recording of Massenet's Manon with Gheorghiu in the title role won the 2001 Gramophone Award for "Best Opera Recording", was nominated for "Best Opera Recording" in the 2002 Grammy Awards.^[13][14] The EMI recording of Puccini's Tosca with Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi in the title roles brought her the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis award in 2002.^[15] She also won Diapason d'Or Awards, Choc du Monde de la Musique in France, Cecilia Prize in Belgium, the Echo Award, the Italian Musica e dischi, Foreign Lyric Production Award, the USA Critics' Award. Gheorghiu won the title of Female Artist of the Year at the Classic Brit Awards in 2001 and 2010.^[16] She was honoured with "La Medaille Vermeille de la Ville de Paris" and she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and by her native country Romania.^{[citation needed]} In December 2010, Gheorghiu was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Arts in Iasi (Romania)^[17] and the Star of Romania, the highest decoration given by the President of Romania.^[18]

Gheorghiu at the Met and elsewhere[link]

On occasion, Gheorghiu has had difficult relationships with opera house managements and directors. Some, but not all, of them have stemmed from her opposition to directors who, as she put it in an interview with ABC "want to express their own fantasies, forgetting about the characters. At times, she says, what they put on stage goes against both the story and the music."^[19] She has attributed her outspokenness to her upbringing in Romania under the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu:

"Because I grew up in a country where there was no possibility of having an opinion, it makes me stronger now. Lots of singers are frightened about not getting invited back to an opera house if they speak out. But I have the courage to be, in a way, revolutionary. I want to fight for opera, for it to be taken seriously. Pop music is for the body, but opera is for the soul.".^[20]

Gheorghiu had a problematic relationship with former Metropolitan Opera General Manager Joseph Volpe after her debut there as Mimì in 1993. In 1996, Gheorghiu was cast as Micaela in a new production of Carmen, opposite Waltraud Meier and Plácido Domingo. The production by Franco Zeffirelli called for Micaela to wear a blonde wig, which Gheorghiu disliked. When the Met toured the production in Japan in 1997, she refused to wear it on the first night to which Volpe famously declared, "The wig is going on, with you or without you" and replaced her with an understudy.^[21][22] She appeared at the Met again in 1998 for six performances of Roméo et Juliette with her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna as Roméo. Volpe had planned to engage Gheorghiu in Violetta Valery for a new production of La traviata, to premiere in November 1998 and directed by Zeffirelli. Alagna was to sing the role of Violetta's lover, Alfredo Germont. According to Volpe, Gheorghiu and Alagna argued with the staff and the director over production details and continually delayed signing the contract. They eventually signed their contracts, and faxed them to the Met one day past their deadline. Volpe refused to accept them. The production opened with Patricia Racette and Marcelo Álvarez as the lovers.^[21]

In September 2007, Gheorghiu was dismissed from Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of La bohème by General Manager William Mason, for missing rehearsals and costume fittings, and generally "unprofessional" behavior. Gheorghiu said in a statement that she had missed some rehearsals to spend time with her husband, who was singing at the Met in Roméo et Juliette and rehearsing for Puccini's Madama Butterfly and added "I have sung 'Boheme' hundreds of times, and thought missing a few rehearsals wouldn't be a tragedy. It was impossible to do the costume fitting at the same time I was in New York.^[23]

Six weeks later, Gheorghiu made her debut at San Francisco Opera receiving favorable reviews for her Magda in that company's new production of La rondine.^[24][25] The San Francisco Opera production originated with London's Royal Opera House, where it premiered on May 7, 2002 with Gheorghiu and Alagna as Magda and her lover Ruggero. It is one which she particularly admires:

"When the curtain opened on La rondine at Covent Garden, the audience gasped and applauded. People want to dream. If directors want to do something new with operas, why not do something beautiful?"^[26]

Despite these issues, Gheorghiu and Alagna returned to the Metropolitan Opera for five performances of L'elisir d'amore in 1999 and for four performances of Faust in 2003. Gheorghiu also performed at the Met as Liù in Turandot in 2000; as Violetta in La traviata opposite Jonas Kaufmann in 2006 and 2007; as Amelia in Simon Boccanegra in 2007; as Mimì in La bohème in 2008; as Magda in the 2008/09 season in the ROH/SFO production of La rondine, the Met's first performance of the opera since 1936; and for the 2009/10 season she appeared as Violetta, replacing her previous engagement as Marie Antoinette in a rare revival of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles which was replaced due to the recession.

On December 31, 2008, Gheorghiu premiered the new production of La rondine at the Met, together with Roberto Alagna, Marius Brenciu, Lisette Oropesa and Samuel Ramey. The opera was last performed at the house over 70 years ago. She received some favorable reviews for her Magda: "Gheorghiu embodies the part, as actress and singer, with her natural charisma."^[27] The New York Times opinion was more mixed: "Vocally, both leads are somewhat disappointing. Ms. Gheorghiu, as Magda, sings with gleaming sound and wonderfully dusky colorings in the strong top register of her voice. But the earthy richness of her mid-range singing sometimes turns breathy, and her low voice is curiously weak."^[28]

In August 2009, Gheorghiu canceled all her scheduled 2010 Met performances of Carmen, for "personal reasons".^[29] It was to be her first public performance of the title role (normally sung by mezzo-sopranos). She also cancelled other Met performances scheduled near the end of 2010. In March 2011 she cancelled all her scheduled performances of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Met, citing illness. Only days later she cancelled all her performances in the scheduled new production of Faust during the Met's 2011/2012 season. According to her manager the singer felt that "She felt uncomfortable in the concept". Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said that her frequent cancellations have become "an increasingly difficult problem for (the Met)." Gelb went on to say that, as of now, plans are still in place for Gheorghiu's return to the Met stage. He also went on the record to say "this has nothing to do with wigs."^[30]

Personal life[link]

Divorced from her first husband, from whom she retained her surname, Gheorghiu married tenor Roberto Alagna in 1996. The couple have sung together often on stage and on studio recordings. She was once chosen the 74th "most beautiful" woman in the world by the magazine FHM.^[31] In October 2009, Alagna said in an interview in Le Figaro that he and Gheorghiu had separated. This had been confirmed on Gheorghiu's website where she has made it clear that she and Alagna have not been in a relationship for over two years.^[32] Following the separation, she declined to appear opposite Alagna in Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in December 2009.^[33] The divorce, however, was then called off, only a few months after announcing it, in December 2009.^[34] In a March 2011 interview with the Daily Express she stated that she and Alagna were back together, and they were seen together in March 2011 backstage at London's Royal Opera House where Alagna was performing in Aida. She also stated in the interview that although she still wanted to sing separately from her husband for a while, she was looking forward to the day when they could retire together and have their own pets.^[35][36][37] Later that year, they jointly opened a Greek amphitheatre in the Emirate of Qatar.^[38]

Recordings[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Angela Gheorghiu: Official website
• Official Angela Gheorghiu page on EMI Classics (Biography, discography, schedule)

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bizɛ]) 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, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.

During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome 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 perles and La jolie fille de Perth—was immediately successful.

After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in which Bizet served in the National Guard, he had little success with his one-act opera Djamileh, though an orchestral suite derived from his incidental music to Alphonse Daudet'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 Halévy 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.

Life[link]

Early years[link]

Family background and childhood[link]

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.^[1] He also composed a few works, including at least one published song.^[2] In 1837 Adolphe 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.^[3] Aimée was an accomplished pianist, while her brother François Delsarte was a distinguished singer and teacher who performed at the courts of both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III.^[4] François Delsarte's wife Rosine, a musical prodigy, had been an assistant professor of solfège at the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 13.^[5]

Georges, an only child,^[3] 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.^[2] 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 structures. This precocity convinced his ambitious parents that he was ready to begin studying at the Conservatoire, even though he was still only nine years old (the minimum entry age was 10). Georges was interviewed by Joseph Meifred, 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.^[3][6]

Conservatoire[link]

Part of the Paris Conservatoire, where Bizet studied from 1848 to 1857 (photographed in 2009)

Bizet was admitted to the Conservatoire on 9 October 1848, two weeks before his 10th birthday.^[3] He made an early impression; within six months he had won first prize in solfège, a feat that impressed Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, the Conservatoire's former professor of piano. Zimmermann gave Bizet private lessons in counterpoint and fugue, which continued until the old man's death in 1853.^[7] Through these classes Bizet met Zimmermann's son-in-law, the composer Charles Gounod, who became a lasting influence on the young pupil's musical style—although their relationship was often strained in later years.^[8] Under the tuition of Antoine François Marmontel, 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".^[9]

Bizet's first preserved compositions, two wordless songs for soprano, date from around 1850. In 1853 he joined Fromental Halévy's composition class, and began to produce works of increasing sophistication and quality.^[10] Two of his songs, "Petite Marguerite" and "La Rose et l'abeille", were published in 1854.^[11] In 1855 he wrote an ambitious overture for a large orchestra,^[12] and prepared four-hand piano versions of two of Gounod's works: the opera La nonne sanglante and the Symphony in D. Bizet's work on the Gounod symphony inspired him, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, to write his own symphony, 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.^[13]

In 1856 Bizet competed for the prestigious Prix de Rome. His entry was not successful, but nor were any of the others; the musician's prize was not awarded that year.^[14] After this rebuff Bizet entered an opera competition which Jacques Offenbach had organised for young composers, with a prize of 1,200 francs. The challenge was to set the one-act libretto of Le docteur Miracle by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy. The prize was awarded jointly to Bizet and Charles Lecocq,^[15] a compromise which years later Lecocq criticised on the grounds of the jury's manipulation by Fromental Halévy in favour of Bizet.^{[n 1]} 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 Gioachino Rossini, who presented the young man with a signed photograph.^{[17][n 2]} 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".^[19]

For his 1857 Prix de Rome entry Bizet, with Gounod's enthusiastic approval, chose to set the cantata Clovis et Clotilde by Amédée Burion. Bizet was awarded the prize after a ballot of the members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts 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.^[17][20]

Rome, 1858–60[link]

The Villa Medici, the official home of the French Académie in Rome since 1803

On 27 January 1858 Bizet arrived at the Villa Medici, a 16th-century palace that since 1803 had housed the French Académie in Rome and which he described in a letter home as "paradise".^[21] Under its director, the painter Jean-Victor Schnetz, 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 Deum 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.^[22] Bizet was discouraged to the extent that he vowed to write no more religious music. His Te Deum remained forgotten and unpublished until 1971.^[23]

Through the winter of 1858–59 Bizet worked on his first envoi, an opera buffa setting of Carlo Cambiaggio's libretto Don Procopio. 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."^[7][24]

Georges Bizet photographed in about 1860

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 Horace. This work, entitled Carmen Saeculare, was intended as a song to Apollo and Diana. No trace exists, and it is unlikely that Bizet ever started it.^[25] 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.^[26] 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.^[27]

In the summer of 1859 Bizet and several companions travelled in the mountains and forests around Anagni and Frosinone. They also visited a convict settlement at Anzio; Bizet sent an enthusiastic letter to Marmontel, recounting his experiences.^[28] In August he made an extended journey south to Naples and Pompeii, 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..."^[29] Bizet began sketching a symphony based on his Italian experiences, but made little immediate headway; the project, which became his Roma symphony, was not finished until 1868.^[7] 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).^[30] In September 1860, while visiting Venice with his friend and fellow-laureate Ernest Guiraud, Bizet received news that his mother was gravely ill in Paris, and made his way home.^[31]

Emergent composer[link]

Paris 1860–63[link]

The Théâtre Historique in Paris, one of the homes of the Théâtre Lyrique company, pictured in 1862

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.^[32] The two state-subsidised opera houses, the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique,^{[n 3]} 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.^[35] Although French composers were better represented at the Opéra-Comique, the style and character of productions had remained largely unchanged since the 1830s.^[35] A number of smaller theatres catered for operetta, a field in which Offenbach was then paramount,^[33] while the Théâtre Italien specialised in second-rate Italian opera. The best prospect for aspirant opera composers was the Théâtre Lyrique company which, despite repeated financial crises, operated intermittently in various premises under its resourceful manager Léon Carvalho.^[35] This company had staged the first performances of Gounod's Faust and his Roméo et Juliette, and of a shortened version of Berlioz's Les Troyens.^[33][36]

On 13 March 1861 Bizet attended the Paris premiere of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser, a performance greeted by audience riots that were stage-managed by the influential Jockey-Club de Paris.^[37] 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".^[27] Thereafter, accusations of "Wagnerism" were often laid against Bizet, throughout his compositional career.^[38] 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".^[39] In May 1861 Bizet gave a rare demonstration of his virtuoso skills when, at a dinner party at which Liszt 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".^[40]

A scene from Act II of Les pêcheurs de perles

Bizet's third envoi was delayed for nearly a year by the prolonged illness and eventual death, in September 1861, of his mother.^[32] 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 perles.^[7][41] 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.^[42]

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 perles, using a libretto by Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon. 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.^[41] 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".^[43] Public reaction was lukewarm, and the opera's run ended after 18 performances. It was not performed again until 1886.^[44]

Years of struggle[link]

Caricature of Bizet, 1863, from the French magazine Diogène

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.^[7] He also worked as an accompanist at rehearsals and auditions for various staged works, including Berlioz's oratorio L'enfance du Christ and Gounod's opera Mireille.^[45] 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.^[7][46] 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.^[47]

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, which rejected it; the work remained unperformed until 1946.^[44][48] In July 1866 Bizet signed another contract with Carvalho, for La jolie fille de Perth, the libretto for which, by J.H. Vernoy de Saint-Georges after Sir Walter Scott, is described by Bizet's biographer Winton Dean as "the worst Bizet was ever called upon to set".^[49] 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.^[44] 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".^[50] Despite the opera's success, Carvalho's financial difficulties meant a run of only 18 performances.^[44]

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".^[51] 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.^{[n 4]} Several competition entries, including a cantata and a hymn composed for the Paris Exhibition of 1867 were unsuccessful.^[53] 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.^[54][55] 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.^{[56][n 5]}

Marriage[link]

Geneviève Bizet, painted in 1878 by Jules-Élie Delaunay.

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 Noé.^[58] 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 Geneviève, who from the age of 15 lived with other family members.^[59] 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!".^[60] 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",^[61] which Dean observes are odd grounds of objection from "a family bristling with artists and eccentrics".^[62] 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".^[63]

As a belated homage to his late father-in-law, 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.^[7][58] Bizet's marriage was initially happy, but was affected by Geneviève's nervous instability (inherited from both her parents),^[64] her difficult relations with her mother and by Mme. Halévy's interference in the couple's affairs.^[55] Despite this, Bizet kept on good terms with his mother-in-law and maintained an extensive correspondence with her.^[65] 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 Richardson's novel Clarissa, and Grisélidis with a libretto from Victorien Sardou.^[66] However, his progress on these projects was brought to a halt in July 1870, with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.^[67]

War and upheaval[link]

Paris during the siege, 1870–71. A contemporary English cartoon

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.^[7][68] Bizet, along with other composers and artists, joined the National Guard and began training.^[69] 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.^[65] 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.^[69]

Bizet greeted with enthusiasm the proclamation in Paris of the Third Republic.^[69] The new government did not sue for peace, and by 17 September the Prussian armies had surrounded Paris.^[70] Unlike Gounod, who fled to England,^[71] 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.^[65] Life in the city became frugal and harsh,^{[n 6]} 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.^[70][73]

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 Commune.^[74] Bizet decided that he was no longer safe in the city, and he and Geneviève escaped to Compiègne.^[65] Later they moved to Le Vésinet 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.^[65][75] 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.^[76]

Late career[link]

[edit] 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 Perrin. 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 Reyer's opera Erostrate after only two performances.^[77] 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.^[78] Bizet's other completed works in 1871 were the piano duet entitled Jeux d'enfants, and a one-act opera, Djamileh, 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.^[79] On 10 July Geneviève gave birth to the couple's only child, a son, Jacques.^[80]

The Opéra, destroyed by fire, 29 October 1873

Bizet's next major assignment came from Carvalho, now managing Paris's Vaudeville theatre, who wanted incidental music for Alphonse Daudet'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 Massenet, Bizet fashioned a four-movement suite from the music,^[81] which was performed under Pasdeloup on 10 November to an enthusiastic reception.^{[7][n 7]} 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".^[83]

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".^[84] The subject chosen for this project was Prosper Mérimée's short novel Carmen. 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.^[7][85] Bizet then began composing Don Rodrigue, an adaptation of the El Cid story by Louis Gallet and Édouard Blau. He played a piano version to a select audience that included the Opéra's principal baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, hoping that the singer's approval might influence the directors of the Opéra to stage the work.^[86] However, on the night of 28–29 October, the Opéra burned to the ground; the directors, amid other pressing concerns, set Don Rodrigue aside.^[87] It was never completed; Bizet later adapted a theme from its final act as the basis of his 1875 overture, Patrie.^[7]

[edit] Carmen

Adolphe de Leuven, 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.^[7] 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".^[88] 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.^[89]

When rehearsals began in October 1874 the orchestra had difficulties with the score, finding some parts unplayable.^[90] 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.^[91] 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.^[92][93] 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.^[94]

Among leading musical figures at the premiere were Jules Massenet, Camille Saint-Saëns and Charles Gounod. Geneviève, suffering from an abscess in her right eye, was unable to be present.^[94] The opera's first performance extended to four-and-a-half hours; the final act did not begin until after midnight.^[95] 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".^{[96][n 8]} Much of the press comment was negative, expressing consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue.^[95] Galli-Marié's performance was described by one critic as "the very incarnation of vice".^[99] Others complained of a lack of melody, and made unfavourable comparisons with the traditional Opéra-Comique fare of Auber and Boieldieu. Léon Escudier in L'Art Musical called the music "dull and obscure ... the ear grows weary of waiting for the cadence that never comes".^[100] There was, however, praise from the poet Théodore de Banville, who applauded Bizet for presenting a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets".^[101] The public's reaction was lukewarm, and Bizet soon became convinced of its failure: "I foresee a definite and hopeless flop".^[102]

Illness and death[link]

Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, where Bizet's funeral service was held on 5 June 1875

For most of his life Bizet had suffered from a recurrent throat complaint.^[103] 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.^[104] In 1868 he informed Galabert that he had been very ill with abscesses in the windpipe: "I suffered like a dog".^[105] 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.^[106][107] 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 Bougival 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, his wedding anniversary, he suffered a fatal second attack.^[108]

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".^{[n 9]} 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 blanche.^[108]

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 Cemetery, 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.^[110] 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.^[111]

Music[link]

Early works[link]

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.^[7] 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.^[112] Bizet's first orchestral piece was an overture written in 1855 in the manner of Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Critics have found it unremarkable, but the Symphony in C of the same year has been warmly praised by later commentators who have made favourable comparisons with Mozart and Schubert.^[7] In Dean's view the symphony has "few rivals and perhaps no superior in the work of any composer of such youth".^[113] The critic Ernest Newman 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.^[114]

Orchestral, piano and vocal works[link]

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 Weber and Mendelssohn. 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".^[115] The musicologist Hugh Macdonald 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.^[7]

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.^[7] The earlier solo pieces bear the influence of Chopin; later works, such as the Variations Chromatiques and the Chasse Fantastique, owe more to Liszt.^[116] 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.^[117] 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."^[118]

Dramatic works[link]

Publicity shots for the Carmen revival at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in January 1915, with Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar. Caruso is centre in the upper row, Farrar top left and bottom right.

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".^[113] 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."^[119] 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 Donizetti, 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.^[7]

In Don Procopio Bizet followed the stock devices of Italian opera as typified by Donizetti in Don Pasquale, a work which it closely resembles. However, the familiar idiom is interspersed with original touches in which Bizet's fingerprints emerge unmistakably.^[7][120] 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".^[41] Its many original flourishes include the introduction to the cavatina 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".^[121] 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,^[7] though the scoring includes highly imaginative touches such as a separate band of woodwind and strings during the opera's Act III seduction scene.^[122]

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".^[7] 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,^[123] as audiences struggled to understand the score's originality; many found the music pretentious and monotonous, lacking in both rhythm and melody.^[90] 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."^[7]

Ralph P. Locke, in his study of Carmen's origins, draws attention to Bizet's successful evocation of Andalusian Spain.^[98] 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.^[124] Among the opera's early champions were Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and particularly Wagner, who commented: "Here, thank God, at last for a change is somebody with ideas in his head."^[125] Another champion of the work was Friedrich Nietzsche, 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".^[126] 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 comique.^[7][127]

Legacy[link]

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.^[7] Even Carmen was altered into grand opera format by the replacement of its dialogue with recitatives written by Guiraud, and by other amendments to the score.^[127] 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.^[7] However, the 20th century saw an increase of interest. Don Procopio was revived in Monte Carlo in 1906;^[128] An Italian version of Les pêcheurs de perles was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 13 November 1916, with Caruso in the leading tenor role;^[129] it has since become a staple at many opera houses.^[130] 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.^[131][132] Excerpts from La coupe du roi de Thulé, edited by Winton Dean, were broadcast by the BBC on 12 July 1955,^[133] and Le docteur Miracle was revived in London on 8 December 1957 by the Park Lane Group.^[128] Items from Vasco da Gama and Ivan IV have been recorded, as have numerous songs and the complete piano music.^{[n 10]} Carmen, after its lukewarm initial Paris run of 45 performances, became a worldwide popular success after performances in Vienna (1875) and London (1878).^[137] It has been hailed as the first opera of the verismo school, in which sordid and brutal subjects are emphasised, with art reflecting life—"not idealised life but life as actually lived."^[125][138]

Schonberg surmises that had Bizet lived, he might have revolutionised French opera;^[126] as it is, verismo was taken up mainly by Italians, notably Puccini who, according to Dean, developed the idea "till it became threadbare".^{[139][n 11]} Bizet founded no specific school, though Dean names Chabrier and Ravel 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".^[139] 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".^[7]

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 Temps, 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 Proust. 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 Aubin, Jean-Michel Damase, Henri Dutilleux and Jean Martinon.^[141][142]

Notes and references[link]

Notes

References

Bibliography[link]

Biography portal

• Curtiss, Mina (1959). Bizet and his World. London: Secker & Warburg. OCLC 505162968. 
• Dean, Winton (1965). Georges Bizet: His Life and Work. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. OCLC 643867230. 
• Dean, Winton (1980). "Bizet, Georges (Alexandre César Léopold)". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-23111-2. 
• Dent, Edward J. (1934). "Opera". In Bacharach, A. L.. The Musical Companion. London: Victor Gollancz. OCLC 500218960. 
• Greenfield, Edward (1958). Puccini: Keeper of the Seal. London: Arrow Books. OCLC 654174732. 
• Grout, Donald Jay; Palisca, Claude V. (1981). A History of Western Music (Third edition). London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. ISBN 0-460-04546-6. 
• Lacombe, Hervé (2001). The Keys to French Opera in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21719-5. http://books.google.com/?id=SQOZG847ylAC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=comme+autrefois+dans+la+nuit+sombre#v=onepage&q=comme%20autrefois%20dans%20la%20nuit%20sombre&f=false. 
• Locke, Ralph P. (2009). "Spanish Local Color in Bizet's Carmen". In Fauser, Annegret; Everist, Mark (eds). Music, Theatre and Cultural Transfer: Paris 1830–1914. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-23926-2. http://books.google.com/?id=EcwNywz8uk0C&pg=PA316&lpg=PA316&dq=Spanish+local+color+in+Bizet%27s+carmen#v=onepage&q=Spanish%20local%20color%20in%20Bizet%27s%20carmen&f=false. 
• McClary, Susan (1992). George Bizet: Carmen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39897-5. http://books.google.com/?id=UNGaPmlHFzgC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=Lesley+Wright+Bizet#v=onepage&q=Lesley%20Wright%20Bizet&f=false. 
• Neef, Sigrid (ed.) (2000). Opera: Composers, Works, Performers (English edition). Cologne: Könemann. ISBN 3-8290-3571-3. 
• Newman, Ernest (1954). More Opera Nights. London: Putnam. OCLC 462366584. 
• Osborne, Charles (1992). The Complete Operas of Wagner. London: Victor Gollancz. ISBN 0-575-05380-1. 
• Roberts, David (ed.) (2005). The Classical Good CD & DVD Guide. London: Haymarket Consumer. ISBN 0-86024-972-7. 
• Schonberg, Harold (1975). The Lives of the Great Composers, Volume I. London: Futura Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-86007-722-5. 
• Schonberg, Harold (1975). The Lives of the Great Composers, Volume II. London: Futura Publications Ltd. ISBN 0-86007-723-3. 
• Steen, Michael (2003). The Life and Times of the Great Composers. London: Icon Books. ISBN 978-1-84046-679-9. 
• Warrack, John; West, Ewan (1992). The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-869164-5.