Le docteur Miracle ( Doctor Miracle ) is an opérette in one act by the French composer Georges Bizet . The libretto , by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy , is based on Sheridan 's play Saint Patrick's Day . Bizet wrote the work when he was just 18 years old for a competition organised by Jacques Offenbach . He shared first prize with Charles Lecocq . His reward was to have the piece performed 11 times at Offenbach's Bouffes-Parisiens theatre. The premiere took place on 9 April 1857 at Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in Paris.
183-582: Carmen ( French: [kaʁmɛn] ) is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet . The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy , based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée . The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after
366-613: A seguidilla , 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. Lillas Pastia's Inn Two months have passed. Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès are entertaining Zuniga and other officers ("Les tringles des sistres tintaient") in Pastia's inn. Carmen
549-651: 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. Bizet's marriage was initially happy, but was affected by Geneviève's nervous instability (inherited from both her parents), her difficult relations with her mother and by Mme. Halévy's interference in
732-514: A drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets". 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 . Carmen was often performed to half-empty houses, even when the management gave away large numbers of tickets. Early on 3 June, the day after the opera's 33rd performance, Bizet died suddenly of heart disease, at
915-460: 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. Bizet revised this finale several times to increase its dramatic effect. Act 2 begins with
1098-602: 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 " . 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,
1281-498: 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 . Le docteur Miracle The story takes place in Padua in the middle of the nineteenth century. The mayor and his wife Véronique are woken up very early one morning by what appears to be
1464-528: A further attack in late March 1875. At that time, depressed by the evident failure of Carmen , Bizet was slow to recover and fell ill again in May. At the end of the month, he went to his holiday home at 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
1647-544: 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." Carmen herself, says Dean,
1830-523: A hurried escape from the Palace Hotel . 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. It enjoyed similar success in other American cities and in all parts of the world, in many different languages. Carmen's habanera from act 1, and the toreador's song " Votre toast " from act 2, are among
2013-513: A large orchestra, 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 never published the symphony, which came to light again only in 1933, and
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#17330558984142196-407: 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
2379-561: A living from writing music. He accepted piano pupils and some composition students, two of whom, Edmond Galabert and Paul Lacombe , became his close friends. He also worked as an accompanist at rehearsals and auditions for various staged works, including Berlioz's oratorio L'enfance du Christ and Gounod's opera Mireille . However, his main work in this period was as an arranger of others' works. He made piano transcriptions for hundreds of operas and other pieces and prepared vocal scores and orchestral arrangements for all kinds of music. He
2562-420: A lover, and 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!"). He reads that his mother wants him to return home and marry Micaëla, who retreats in shy embarrassment on learning this. Just as José declares that he
2745-404: A maturity of style that, had he lived longer, might have been the basis for future great orchestral works. Bizet's piano works have not entered the concert pianist's repertoire and are generally too difficult for amateurs to attempt. The exception is the above-described Jeux d’enfants duet suite; here Bizet avoids the virtuoso passages that so dominate his solo music. The early solo pieces bear
2928-466: 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. This action elicits from José a passionate A major solo which Dean suggests is the turning-point in his musical characterisation. The softer vein returns briefly, as Micaëla reappears and joins with José in
3111-483: A musician with a dramatic root of the matter in him could have achieved." Until Carmen , however, Bizet was not essentially an innovator in the musical theatre. He wrote most of his operas in the traditions of Italian and French opera established by such as 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. In Don Procopio , Bizet followed
3294-442: A noisy advertising campaign outside their house, shouting the talents of a Doctor Miracle. This is, in fact, a young officer, Silvio, who had thought up this ruse in order to be able to serenade the mayor's daughter Laurette, with whom he has fallen in love. The mayor, who has an aversion to the military, has got wind of their relationship and had forbidden Laurette to have anything to do with soldiers. He suspects that Doctor Miracle
3477-401: A pianist, Bizet had showed considerable skill from his earliest years. A contemporary asserted that he could have assured a future on the concert platform, but chose to conceal his talent "as though it were a vice". In May 1861 Bizet gave a rare demonstration of his virtuoso skills when, at a dinner party at which Liszt was present, he astonished everyone by playing on sight, flawlessly, one of
3660-408: A pinnacle in Carmen and suggests that had Clarissa Harlowe and Grisélidis been completed, Bizet's legacy would have been "infinitely richer". As Bizet moved away from the accepted musical conventions of French opera, he encountered critical hostility. In the case of Djamileh , the accusation of "Wagnerism" was raised again, as audiences struggled to understand the score's originality; many found
3843-463: A realisation of the composer's own unconscious longing for a freedom denied to him by his stifling marriage. Harold C. Schonberg likens Carmen to "a female Don Giovanni. She would rather die than be false to herself." 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
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#17330558984144026-456: A recurrent throat complaint. A heavy smoker, he may have further undermined his health by overwork during the mid-1860s, when he toiled over publishers' transcriptions for up to 16 hours a day. In 1868, he informed Galabert that he had been very ill with abscesses in the windpipe: "I suffered like a dog". In 1871, and again in 1874, while completing Carmen , he had been disabled by severe bouts of what he described as "throat angina", and suffered
4209-664: 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 a later opera. 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 compose
4392-426: A short prelude, based on a melody that José will sing offstage before his next entry. A festive scene in the inn precedes Escamillo's tumultuous entrance, in which brass and percussion provide prominent backing while the crowd sings along. The quintet that follows is described by Newman as "of incomparable verve and musical wit". José's appearance precipitates a long mutual wooing scene; Carmen sings, dances and plays
4575-402: 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. In September an approach was made to Marie Roze , well known for previous triumphs at the Opéra-Comique,
4758-594: A single act to a four-act operetta Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre . When the work was performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée on 13 December 1867, it was a great success, and the Revue et Gazette Musicale's critic lavished particular praise on Bizet's act: "Nothing could be more stylish, smarter and, at the same time, more distinguished". Bizet also found time to finish his long-gestating Roma symphony and wrote numerous keyboard works and songs. Nevertheless, this period of Bizet's life
4941-524: A sudden end. Bizet greeted with enthusiasm the proclamation in Paris of the Third Republic . The new government did not sue for peace, and by 17 September, the Prussian armies had surrounded Paris. Unlike Gounod, who fled to England, Bizet rejected opportunities to leave the besieged city: "I can't leave Paris! It's impossible! It would be quite simply an act of cowardice", he wrote to Mme Halévy. Life in
5124-460: A superior officer, José now has no choice but to join Carmen and the smugglers ("Suis-nous à travers la campagne"). A wild spot in the mountains Carmen and José enter with the smugglers and their booty ("Écoute, écoute, compagnon"); Carmen has now become bored with José and tells him scornfully that he should go back to his mother. Frasquita and Mercédès amuse themselves by reading their fortunes from
5307-423: A third year, rather than going to Germany, so that he could complete "an important work" (which has not been identified). In September 1860, while visiting 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. Back in Paris with two years of his grant remaining, Bizet was temporarily secure financially and could ignore for
5490-465: A year before it was finally performed by the Théâtre Lyrique on 26 December 1867. Its press reception was more favourable than that for any of Bizet's other operas; Le Ménestral's critic hailed the second act as "a masterpiece from beginning to end". Despite the opera's success, Carvalho's financial difficulties meant a run of only 18 performances. While La jolie fille was in rehearsal, Bizet worked with three other composers, each of whom contributed
5673-400: Is Silvio in disguise, but his worries are calmed by Laurette and by Véronique, who has guessed what is going on. Laurette sings of her passion for Silvio, and a young man suddenly arrives at the house: he says that he is Pasquin and that he has been sent by a friend of the mayor to help out with the housework – he adds that he is allergic to soldiers. The mayor is delighted to welcome him into
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5856-473: 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. The prelude to act 1 combines three recurrent themes: the entry of the bullfighters from act 4, the refrain from the Toreador Song from act 2, and the motif that, in two slightly differing forms, represents both Carmen herself and
6039-471: 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". Curtiss suggests that Carmen's character, spiritually and musically, may be
6222-483: 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 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. There is no clear indication of when work began on Carmen . Bizet and the two librettists were all in Paris during 1873 and easily able to meet; thus there
6405-532: Is all clarity and vivacity, full of colour and melody". The renowned mezzo-soprano Célestine Galli-Marié (known professionally as "Galli-Marié") was engaged to sing the title role. According to Dean, she was as delighted by the part as Bizet was by her suitability for it. There were rumours that he and the singer pursued a brief affair; his relations with Geneviève were strained at this time, and they lived apart for several months. When rehearsals began in October 1874,
6588-541: Is based on an idiomatic song, "El arreglito", by the Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier (1809–65). 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 Yradier. 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
6771-462: Is characteristic of Bizet's mature works. Bizet's first orchestral piece was an overture written in 1855 in the manner of Rossini's Guillaume 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. In Dean's view, the symphony has "few rivals and perhaps no superior in
6954-696: Is delighted to learn of José's release from two months' detention. Outside, a chorus and procession announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Toréro"). Invited inside, he introduces himself with the " Toreador 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, smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado arrive and reveal their plans to dispose of some recently acquired contraband ("Nous avons en tête une affaire"). Frasquita and Mercédès are keen to help them, but Carmen refuses, since she wishes to wait for José. After
7137-479: Is dying. He departs, vowing he will return. Escamillo is heard in the distance, singing the toreador's song. 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 ("Les voici! Voici la quadrille!"). Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their mutual love ("Si tu m'aimes, Carmen"). As Escamillo goes into
7320-547: 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. 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
7503-452: 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." In Bizet's family circle, his father Adolphe died in 1886. Bizet's son Jacques killed himself 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
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7686-569: Is little written record or correspondence relating to the beginning of the collaboration. The libretto was prepared in accordance with the conventions of opéra comique , with dialogue separating musical numbers. It deviates from Mérimée's novella in a number of significant 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
7869-554: 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." Bizet's early one-act opera Le docteur Miracle provides the first clear signs of his promise in this genre, its sparkling music including, according to Dean, "many happy touches of parody, scoring and comic characterisation". Newman perceives evidence of Bizet's later achievements in many of his earliest works: "[A]gain and again we light upon some touch or other in them that only
8052-419: Is music that makes no pretensions to depth, but it is delightful in its simplicity, so unaffected and sincere". By broad consent, Carmen represents the fulfilment of Bizet's development as a master of music drama and the culmination of the genre of opéra comique . 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
8235-490: 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 her provocative habanera on the untameable nature of love ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"). The men plead with her to choose
8418-429: Is often difficult to establish what is authentic Bizet. 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. The music world did not immediately acknowledge Bizet as a master and, apart from Carmen and the L'Arlésienne suite, few of his works were performed in the years immediately following his death. However,
8601-426: Is prefaced with a lively orchestral piece derived from Manuel García 's short operetta El criado fingido . 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. 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
8784-401: 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
8967-399: Is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve 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 torero Escamillo, after which José kills her in a jealous rage. The depictions of proletarian life, immorality, and lawlessness, and
9150-406: Is sullen and aggressive. 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. The confident, off-stage sound of the departing Escamillo singing the toreador's refrain provides a distinct contrast to José's increasing desperation. The final act
9333-592: 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; he thus, according to Susan McClary , "inadvertently preserves as definitive an early draft of the opera". In the early 21st century new editions were prepared by Robert Didion and Richard Langham-Smith, published by Schott and Peters respectively. Each departs significantly from Bizet's vocal score of March 1875, published during his lifetime after he had personally corrected
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#17330558984149516-603: The BBC on 12 July 1955, and Le docteur Miracle was revived in London on 8 December 1957 by the Park Lane Group. Vasco da Gama and Ivan IV have been recorded, as have numerous songs and the complete piano music. Carmen , after its lukewarm initial Paris run of 45 performances, became a worldwide popular success after performances in Vienna (1875) and London (1878). It has been hailed as
9699-694: The Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 13. At least one author has suggested that Aimée was from a Jewish family, but this is not substantiated in any of Georges' official biographies. Georges, an only child, showed early aptitude for music and quickly picked up the basics of musical notation from his mother, who probably gave him his first piano lessons. By listening at the door of the room where Adolphe conducted his classes, Georges learned to sing difficult songs accurately from memory and developed an ability to identify and analyse complex chordal structures . This precocity convinced his ambitious parents that he
9882-511: 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. However, on the night of 28–29 October, the Opéra burned to the ground; the directors, amid other pressing concerns, set Don Rodrigue aside. It
10065-480: 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, 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. Halévy, who had written
10248-527: The National Guard and began training. He was critical of the antiquated equipment with which he was supposed to fight; his unit's guns, he said, were more dangerous to themselves than to the enemy. The national mood was soon depressed by news of successive reverses; at Sedan on 2 September, the French armies suffered an overwhelming defeat; Napoleon was captured and deposed, and the Second Empire came to
10431-512: 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. 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 . Although no action was taken at that time, Bizet remained on friendly terms with
10614-416: The castanets ; a distant cornet-call summoning José to duty is blended with Carmen's melody so as to be barely discernible. A muted reference to the fate motif on an English horn leads to José's "Flower Song", a flowing continuous melody that ends pianissimo on a sustained high B-flat . José's insistence that, despite Carmen's blandishments, he must return to duty leads to a quarrel; the arrival of Zuniga,
10797-523: The musique de scène for Daudet's play L’Arlésienne (1872): Jeux resulted in the Petite suite of 1873, which has five movements (Marche—Berceuse—Impromptu—Duo—Galop) , while the musique de scène resulted in two suites, one from the year of the premiere compiled by Bizet (Prélude—Menuet—Adagietto—Carillon) and the other from 1879 compiled posthumously by Guiraud (Pastorale—Intermezzo—Menuet—Farandole) . According to Macdonald, in all three Bizet demonstrates
10980-783: The 20th century saw increased interest. Don Procopio was revived in Monte Carlo in 1906; 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, and it has since become a staple at many opera houses. After its first performance in Switzerland in 1935, the Symphony in C entered the concert repertory and has been recorded by, among many others, Sir Thomas Beecham . Excerpts from La coupe du roi de Thulé , edited by Winton Dean, were broadcast by
11163-455: The 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon ; the " Habanera " and " Seguidilla " from act 1 and the " Toreador Song " from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It
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#173305589841411346-615: 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". Carmen was also acclaimed in numerous French provincial cities including Marseille , 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". But Carvalho, who had assumed
11529-622: The Conservatoire's second prize for piano in 1851, and first prize the following year. Bizet would later write to Marmontel: "In your class one learns something besides the piano; one becomes a musician". Bizet's first preserved compositions, two wordless songs for soprano , date from around 1850. In 1853, he joined Fromental Halévy 's composition class and began to produce works of increasing sophistication and quality. Two of his songs, "Petite Marguerite" and "La Rose et l'abeille", were published in 1854. In 1855, he wrote an ambitious overture for
11712-626: 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. In the novella, Carmen and José are presented much less sympathetically than they are in the opera; Bizet's 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". With rehearsals due to begin in October 1873, Bizet began composing in or around January of that year, and by
11895-507: The Halévy family initially disallowed the match. According to Bizet they considered him an unsuitable catch: "penniless, left-wing, anti-religious and Bohemian", which Dean observes are odd grounds of objection from "a family bristling with artists and eccentrics". By summer 1869, their objections had been overcome, and the wedding took place on 3 June 1869. Ludovic Halévy wrote in his journal: "Bizet has spirit and talent. He should succeed". As
12078-484: 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. It is unclear when Geneviève and Bizet became emotionally attached, but in October 1867, he informed Galabert: "I have met an adorable girl whom I love! In two years she will be my wife!" The pair became engaged, although
12261-454: 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
12444-449: The Opéra and the Opéra-Comique —followed conservative repertoires that restricted opportunities for young native talent. 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. When artistic life in Paris resumed after
12627-429: The Opéra and in London. She refused the part when she learned that she would be required to die on stage. The role was then offered to Célestine Galli-Marié , who agreed to terms with du Locle after several months' negotiation. 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. At
12810-498: 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. Bizet resumed work on Clarissa Harlowe and Grisélidis , but plans for
12993-424: The Opéra, which rejected it; the work remained unperformed until 1946. In July 1866, Bizet signed another contract with Carvalho, for La jolie fille de Perth , the libretto for which, by Jules-Henri 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". Problems over the casting and other issues delayed its premiere for
13176-630: The Opéra-Comique, the style and character of productions had remained largely unchanged since the 1830s. A number of smaller theatres catered for operetta , a field in which Offenbach was then paramount, 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 . This company had staged
13359-450: The Opéra-Comique. [Henri] Meilhac and [Ludovic] Halévy are doing my piece". 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. Bizet then began composing Don Rodrigue , an adaptation of
13542-481: The Paris musical world, and because Galli-Marié was too upset to appear, that evening's performance of Carmen was cancelled and replaced with Boieldieu 's La dame blanche . More than 4,000 people were present at the funeral on 5 June, at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité , just to the north of the Opéra. Adolphe Bizet led the mourners, who included Gounod, Thomas, Ludovic Halévy , Léon Halévy and Massenet. An orchestra, under Jules Pasdeloup , played Patrie , and
13725-416: 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 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,
13908-511: The age of 36. It was his wedding anniversary. That night's performance was cancelled; the tragic circumstances brought a temporary increase in public interest during the brief period before the season ended. 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. Among those who attended one of these later performances
14091-434: The arena, Frasquita and Mercédès warn 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
14274-457: 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 since been widely acclaimed for brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere, and orchestration, and for the skill with which the emotions and suffering of the characters are represented. At his death Bizet was still in the midst of revising his score and because of other later changes (notably
14457-426: The bullfighter turns to anger when Escamillo declares his infatuation with Carmen. The pair fight ("Je suis Escamillo, toréro de Grenade"), 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
14640-494: The bullfighting arena. As José kills Carmen, the chorus sing the refrain of the Toreador 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. 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. Numbers are from
14823-532: The cadence that never comes." It seemed that Bizet had generally failed to fulfill 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
15006-483: The cards; Carmen joins them and finds that the cards are foretelling her death, and José's. The smugglers depart to transport their goods while the women distract the local customs officers. José is left behind 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
15189-540: 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. 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, even in their relatively sanitised forms neither corresponds to
15372-480: The city became frugal and harsh, although, by October, there were efforts to re-establish normality. Pasdeloup resumed his regular Sunday concerts, and on 5 November, the Opéra reopened with excerpts from works by Gluck, Rossini, and Meyerbeer. An armistice was signed on 26 January 1871, but the departure of the Prussian troops from Paris in March presaged a period of confusion and civil disturbance. Following an uprising,
15555-734: The city's municipal authority was taken over by dissidents who established the Paris Commune . Bizet decided that he was no longer safe in the city, and he and Geneviève escaped to Compiègne . 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. As life in Paris returned to normal, in June 1871, Bizet's appointment as chorus-master at
15738-419: 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. He also met another of Gounod's young students, the 13-year-old Camille Saint-Saëns , who remained a firm friend of Bizet's. Under the tuition of Antoine François Marmontel , the Conservatoire's professor of piano, Bizet's pianism developed rapidly; he won
15921-413: The composer's true intentions. Bizet also changed the libretto, reordering sequences and imposing his own verses where he felt the librettists had strayed too far from the character of Mérimée's original. Among other changes, he provided new words for Carmen's "Habanera", 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. Most of
16104-457: 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." 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, sometimes to meet
16287-416: The consequent fight and José's unavoidable ensnarement into the lawless life culminates musically in the triumphant hymn to freedom that closes the act. The prelude to act 3 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". As the action unfolds, the tension between Carmen and José
16470-464: The consolations of a few friends". 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. 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
16653-443: 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. On 9 January 1884, Carmen
16836-504: 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. Bizet was discouraged to
17019-447: The couple's affairs. Despite this, Bizet kept on good terms with his mother-in-law and maintained an extensive correspondence with her. In the year following the marriage, he considered plans for at least half a dozen new operas and began to sketch the music for two of them: Clarissa Harlowe based on Samuel Richardson 's novel Clarissa , and Grisélidis with a libretto from Victorien Sardou . However, his progress on these projects
17202-411: The couple's only child, a son, Jacques . Bizet's next major assignment came from Carvalho, who was now managing Paris' Vaudeville theatre and 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
17385-525: The demands of individual singers, and otherwise in response to the demands of the theatre's management. The vocal score that Bizet published in March 1875 shows significant changes from the version of the score he sold the publishers, Choudens [ fr ] , 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
17568-499: 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. Bizet, who had never visited Spain, sought out appropriate ethnic material to provide an authentic Spanish flavour to his music. Carmen's habanera
17751-481: 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. 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
17934-413: The early hours of 3 June, his wedding anniversary, he suffered a fatal second attack. He was 36 years old. 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 eventually determined the cause as "a cardiac complication of acute articular rheumatism". News of the death stunned
18117-500: The ends of the earth to embrace Bizet". 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
18300-418: The extent that he vowed to write no more religious music. His Te Deum remained forgotten and unpublished until 1971. Through the winter of 1858–59, Bizet worked on his first envoi, an opera 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 after his Te Deum experience, he was averse to writing religious music. He
18483-449: The famous Omelette quartet , Pasquin brings in the omelette and they all sing its praises. But when the mayor and his wife and Laurette taste it, they all start to choke – it is disgusting. The mayor and Véronique rush from the house to rinse their mouths out and Laurette now recognises Pasquin as Silvio: they sing a tender love duet which turns into a trio when the mayor returns and catches them together. Furious, he throws Silvio out of
18666-404: The fate she personifies. This motif, played on clarinet , bassoon , cornet and cellos over tremolo strings, concludes the prelude with an abrupt crescendo. 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
18849-514: The first known instances in which the dialogue version was used other than in France. 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. Dean has commented on the dramatic distortions that arise from the suppression of
19032-559: 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". The music critic Harold C. Schonberg surmises that, had Bizet lived, he might have revolutionised French opera; as it is, verismo was taken up mainly by Italians, notably Puccini who, according to Dean, developed the idea "till it became threadbare". Bizet founded no specific school, though Dean names Chabrier and Ravel as composers influenced by him. Dean also suggests that
19215-639: The first performances of Gounod's Faust and his Roméo et Juliette , and of a shortened version of Berlioz 's Les Troyens . 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 . Despite this distraction, Bizet revised his opinions of Wagner's music, which he had previously dismissed as merely eccentric. He now declared Wagner "above and beyond all living composers". Thereafter, accusations of "Wagnerism" were often laid against Bizet, throughout his compositional career. As
19398-560: The first time; he continued to perform in this role until 1919, two years before his death. 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. 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
19581-421: The fish". Much of the press comment was negative, expressing consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue. Galli-Marié's performance was described by one critic as "the very incarnation of vice". Others complained of a lack of melody and made unfavourable comparisons with the traditional Opéra-Comique fare of Auber and Boieldieu . Léon Escudier in L'Art Musical called
19764-408: The full recitative version became the norms for productions of the opera outside France for most of the next century. Despite its deviations from Bizet's original format, and some critical reservations, the 1875 Vienna production was a great success with the city's public. It also won praise from both Wagner and Brahms . The latter reportedly saw the opera twenty times, and said he would have "gone to
19947-410: 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. After the various delays, Bizet appears to have resumed work on Carmen early in 1874. He completed the draft of
20130-439: The house, not realising that Pasquin is in fact Silvio in another disguise. Pasquin sings of his many attributes as a servant and the mayor is pleased with what he hears. The mayor introduces Pasquin to his wife and daughter and Pasquin, to Laurette's disgust (although she has not recognised him yet), pretends to flirt with Véronique. It is time for breakfast, and the mayor gives Pasquin instructions to prepare an omelette . In
20313-499: The house. Soon after, a telegram arrives from Silvio confessing that the omelette was in fact poisoned. The mayor is terrified, but Laurette tells him that she knows a wonderful doctor who will be able to cure him. In a panic, the mayor promises to give this doctor anything he wants in return for the antidote to the poison. The doctor arrives – it is, of course, Silvio again, back in the Doctor Miracle disguise. He offers to cure
20496-504: The influence of Chopin; later works, such as the Variations chromatiques or the Chasse fantastique , owe more to Liszt. Most of Bizet's songs were written in the period 1866–68. Dean defines the main weaknesses in these songs as an unimaginative repetition of the same music for each verse, and a tendency to write for the orchestra rather than the voice. Much of Bizet's larger-scale vocal music
20679-481: The introduction of recitatives composed by Ernest Guiraud in place of the original dialogue) there is still no definitive edition of the opera. The opera has been recorded many times since the first acoustical recording in 1908, and the story has been the subject of many screen and stage adaptations. In the Paris of the 1860s, despite being a Prix de Rome laureate, Bizet struggled to get his stage works performed. The capital's two main state-funded opera houses—
20862-476: The journal Revue des deux Mondes . It may have been influenced in part by Alexander Pushkin 's 1824 poem " The Gypsies ", a work Mérimée had translated into French; it has also been suggested that the story was developed from an incident told to Mérimée by his friend the Countess Montijo. Bizet may first have encountered the story during his Rome sojourn of 1858–60, since his journals record Mérimée as one of
21045-596: 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
21228-503: The latter to be staged at the Opéra-Comique fell through, and neither work was finished; only fragments of their music survive. Bizet's other completed works in 1871 were the piano duet entitled Jeux d'enfants , and a one-act opera, 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. On 10 July Geneviève gave birth to
21411-484: The leading singers threatened to withdraw from the production did the management give way. Resolving these issues delayed the first night until 3 March 1875 on which morning, by chance, Bizet's appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour was announced. Among leading musical figures at the premiere were Jules Massenet , Camille Saint-Saëns , and Charles Gounod . Geneviève, suffering from an abscess in her right eye,
21594-403: The level of contemporary French opera". 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". While the music of Les pêcheurs is atmospheric and deeply evocative of
21777-489: The maestro's most difficult pieces. Liszt commented: "I thought there were only two men able to surmount the difficulties ... there are three, and ... the youngest is perhaps the boldest and most brilliant." Bizet's third envoi was delayed for nearly a year by the prolonged illness and death, in September 1861, of his mother. He eventually submitted a trio of orchestral works: an overture entitled La Chasse d'Ossian ,
21960-488: 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 his two operas that reached
22143-430: 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. In April 1883 Carvalho finally revived Carmen at the Opéra-Comique, with Adèle Isaac featuring in an under-rehearsed production that removed some of
22326-403: The moment the difficulties that other young composers faced in the city. The two state-subsidised opera houses, the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique , each presented traditional repertoires that tended to stifle and frustrate new homegrown talent; only eight of the 54 Prix de Rome laureates between 1830 and 1860 had had works staged at the Opéra. Although French composers were better represented at
22509-406: The most popular and best-known of all operatic arias, the latter "a splendid piece of swagger" according to Newman, "against which the voices and the eyebrows of purists have long been raised in vain". 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
22692-462: The most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. 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
22875-457: The music "dull and obscure ... the ear grows weary of waiting for the cadence that never comes". There was, however, praise from the poet Théodore de Banville , who applauded Bizet for presenting a drama with real men and women instead of the usual Opéra-Comique "puppets". The public's reaction was lukewarm, and Bizet soon became convinced of its failure: "I foresee a definite and hopeless flop". For most of his life, Bizet had suffered from
23058-426: The music for a three-act opera. This was Les pêcheurs de perles , based on a libretto by Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon . Because a condition of this offer was that the opera should be the composer's first publicly staged work, Bizet hurriedly withdrew La guzla from production and incorporated parts of its music into the new opera. The first performance of Les pêcheurs de perles , by the Théâtre Lyrique company,
23241-420: The music pretentious and monotonous, lacking in both rhythm and melody. By contrast, modern critical opinion as expressed by Macdonald is that Djamileh is "a truly enchanting piece, full of inventive touches, especially of chromatic colour." Ralph P. Locke, in his study of Carmen's origins, draws attention to Bizet's successful evocation of Andalusian Spain. Grout, in his History of Western Music , praises
23424-421: The music's extraordinary rhythmic and melodic vitality, and Bizet's ability to obtain the maximum dramatic effect in the most economical fashion. Among the opera's early champions were Tchaikovsky , Brahms , and particularly Wagner, who commented: "Here, thank God, at last for a change is somebody with ideas in his head." Another champion of the work was Friedrich Nietzsche , who claimed to know it by heart; "It
23607-535: The music, which was performed under Pasdeloup on 10 November to an enthusiastic reception. In the winter of 1872–73, Bizet supervised preparations for a revival of the still-absent Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Opéra-Comique. Relations between the two had been cool for some years, but Bizet responded positively to his former mentor's request for help, writing: "You were the beginning of my life as an artist. I spring from you". In June 1872, Bizet informed Galabert: "I have just been ordered to compose three acts for
23790-462: The norms of opéra comique . They are more akin to the verismo style that would find fuller expression in the works of Puccini . Dean considers that José is the central figure of the opera: "It is his fate rather than Carmen's that interests us." The music characterises his gradual decline, act by act, from honest soldier to deserter, vagabond and finally murderer. In act 1 he is a simple countryman aligned musically with Micaëla; in act 2 he evinces
23973-444: The opera's Eastern setting, in La jolie fille de Perth , Bizet made no attempt to introduce Scottish colour or mood, though the scoring includes highly imaginative touches such as a separate band of woodwind and strings during the opera's Act III seduction scene. From Bizet's unfinished works, Macdonald highlights La coupe du roi de Thulé as giving clear signs of the power that would reach
24156-400: The orchestra had difficulties with the score, finding some parts unplayable. The chorus likewise declared some of their music impossible to sing and were dismayed that they had to act as individuals, smoking and fighting onstage rather than merely standing in line. Bizet also had to counter further attempts at the Opéra-Comique to modify parts of the action which they deemed improper. Only when
24339-469: 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 peroration . After a special performance of Carmen at the Opéra-Comique that night,
24522-461: 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. Shortly 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
24705-693: 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 Saint Petersburg . In the following five years performances were given in numerous American and European cities. The opera found particular favour in Germany, where
24888-403: The part, never performed it on stage. 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". Bizet
25071-460: The premiere run was 62 or 57 musicians in total (depending on whether the pit trumpet and trombone players doubled off-stage music). 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 relax in the square, waiting for the changing of the guard and commenting on the passers-by ("Sur la place, chacun passe"). Micaëla appears, seeking José. Moralès tells her that "José
25254-418: The press, which had almost universally condemned the piece three months earlier, now declared Bizet a master. Bizet's earliest compositions, chiefly songs and keyboard pieces written as exercises, give early indications of his emergent power and his gifts as a melodist. Dean sees evidence in the piano work Romance sans parole , written before 1854, of "the conjunction of melody, rhythm and accompaniment" that
25437-415: The proofs; Dean believes this vocal score should be the basis of any standard edition. 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; 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
25620-439: The public and performers for more than a century." Meanwhile, Carmen ' s popularity endures; 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. 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
25803-661: The smugglers leave, José arrives. Carmen treats him to a private exotic dance ("Je vais danser en votre honneur ... La la la"), but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When José says he must return to duty, she mocks him, and 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 show 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. Carmen summons her gypsy comrades, who restrain Zuniga. Having attacked
25986-411: The stage altogether in 1876, refusing Mapleson's considerable cash inducements to return. Because rehearsals did not start until October 1874 and lasted longer than anticipated, the premiere was delayed. The final rehearsals went well, and in a generally optimistic mood the first night was fixed for 3 March 1875, the day on which, coincidentally, Bizet's appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour
26169-499: The stage in this time— Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth —were immediately successful. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, during 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 his final opera, Carmen ,
26352-472: 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. 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
26535-454: 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. One reason for the delay may have been the difficulties in finding a singer for the title role. Another was a split that developed between the joint directors of the theatre, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven , over
26718-501: The symphonic poem Vasco da Gama . This replaced Carmen Saeculare as his second envoi, and was well received by the Académie, though swiftly forgotten thereafter. In the summer of 1859, Bizet and several companions travelled in the mountains and forests around Anagni and Frosinone . They also visited a convict settlement at Anzio ; Bizet sent an enthusiastic letter to Marmontel, recounting his experiences. In August, he made an extended journey south to Naples and Pompeii , where he
26901-404: The test of time. While he places the opera firmly within the long opéra comique tradition, 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". Dean sees Bizet's principal achievement in the demonstration of the main actions of the opera in the music, rather than in
27084-414: The text for Bizet's student opera Le docteur Miracle (1856), was a cousin of Bizet's wife, Geneviève ; he and Meilhac had a solid reputation as the librettists of many of Jacques Offenbach 's operettas. 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". The subject of the projected work
27267-515: The time it was generally believed that she and the composer were conducting a love affair during the months of rehearsal. 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 . Jacques Bouhy , engaged to sing Escamillo,
27450-457: The tragic death of the main character 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 popularity at home and abroad. Later commentators have asserted that Carmen forms
27633-523: The vocal score (English version) printed by G. Schirmer Inc. , New York, 1958 from Guiraud's 1875 arrangement. Act 1 Act 2 Georges Bizet Georges Bizet ( né Alexandre César Léopold Bizet ; 25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era . Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen , which has become one of
27816-478: The wishes of her family who considered him a poor prospect; the Delsartes, though impoverished, were a cultured and highly musical family. Aimée was an accomplished pianist, while her brother François Delsarte was a distinguished singer and teacher who performed at the courts of both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III . François Delsarte's wife Rosine, a musical prodigy, had been an assistant professor of solfège at
27999-416: The work I have written for them?" In a different vein, 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!" 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. There
28182-622: The work of any composer of such youth". The critic Ernest Newman suggests that Bizet may at this time have 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. 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
28365-440: The work suffers from poor organisation and an excess of pretentious music; he calls it a "misfire". Bizet's other mature orchestral work, the overture Patrie , is similarly dismissed: "an awful warning of the danger of confusing art with patriotism". The musicologist Hugh Macdonald argues that Bizet's best orchestral music is found in the suites that he derived from the 12-movement Jeux d’enfants for piano four-hands (1871) and
28548-407: The work there in 1900. In 1919, Bizet's aged contemporary Camille Saint-Saëns 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 wife had permitted it. At the Opéra-Comique, after its 1883 revival, Carmen was always presented in the dialogue version with minimal musical embellishments. By 1888,
28731-430: The writers whose works he absorbed in those years. The orchestration consists of two flutes ( doubling piccolo ), two oboes (the second doubling cor anglais ), two clarinets , two bassoons , four horns , two trumpets , three trombones , harp , and strings . The percussion section consists of timpani , side drum , triangle , tambourine , cymbals , castanets , and bass drum . The orchestral complement for
28914-542: The year of the 50th anniversary of Bizet's birth, the opera had been performed there 330 times; by 1938, his centenary year, the total of performances at the theatre had reached 2,271. 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
29097-555: 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." After the final performance, Carmen was not seen in Paris again until 1883. 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
29280-471: Was a great admirer of Rossini's music, and wrote not long after their first meeting that "Rossini is the greatest of them all, because like Mozart, he has all the virtues". For his 1857 Prix de Rome entry, Bizet, with Gounod's enthusiastic approval, chose to set the 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
29463-502: 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 . Mérimée's story is a blend of travelogue and adventure yarn, possibly inspired by the writer's lengthy travels in Spain in 1830, and had originally been published in 1845 in
29646-500: Was a significant loss to French musical theatre. Georges Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. He was registered as Alexandre César Léopold, but baptised as "Georges" on 16 March 1840, and was known by this name for the rest of his life. His father, Adolphe Bizet, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher despite his lack of formal training. He also composed a few works, including at least one published song. In 1837, Adolphe married Aimée Delsarte, against
29829-446: 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. 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
30012-454: Was admitted to the Conservatoire on 9 October 1848, two weeks before his 10th birthday. He made an early impression; within six months he had won first prize in solfège, a feat that impressed Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman , the Conservatoire's former professor of piano. Zimmerman gave Bizet private lessons in counterpoint and fugue , which continued until the old man's death in 1853. Through these classes, Bizet met Zimmerman's son-in-law,
30195-527: Was also, briefly, a music critic for La Revue Nationale et Étrangère , under the assumed name of "Gaston de Betzi". Bizet's single contribution in this capacity appeared on 3 August 1867, after which he quarrelled with the magazine's new editor and resigned. Since 1862, Bizet had been working intermittently on Ivan IV , an opera based on the life of Ivan the Terrible . Carvalho failed to deliver on his promise to produce it, so in December 1865, Bizet offered it to
30378-457: Was apprehensive about how this breach of the rules would be received at the Académie, but their response to Don Procopio was initially positive, with praise for the composer's "easy and brilliant touch" and "youthful and bold style". For his second envoi, not wishing to test the Académie's tolerance too far, Bizet proposed to submit a quasi-religious work in the form of a secular mass on a text by Horace . This work, entitled Carmen Saeculare ,
30561-406: Was awarded jointly to Bizet and Charles Lecocq , a compromise which years later Lecocq criticised on the grounds of the jury's manipulation by Fromental Halévy in favour of Bizet. As a result of his success, Bizet became a regular guest at Offenbach's Friday evening parties, where among other musicians he met the aged Gioachino Rossini , who presented the young man with a signed photograph. Bizet
30744-648: Was brought to a halt in July 1870, with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War . After a series of perceived provocations from Prussia, culminating in the offer of the Spanish crown to the Prussian Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern , the French Emperor Napoleon III declared war on 15 July 1870. Initially, this step was supported by an outbreak of patriotic fervour and confident expectations of victory. Bizet, along with other composers and artists, joined
30927-433: Was consternation that the heroine was an amoral seductress rather than a woman of virtue; Galli-Marié's interpretation of the role was described by one critic as "the very incarnation of vice". 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
31110-422: Was delayed because of 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 ,
31293-471: Was finally performed in 1935. 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. 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
31476-401: Was formally announced. The premiere, which was conducted by Adolphe Deloffre , was attended by many of Paris's leading musical figures, including Massenet, Offenbach, Delibes and Gounod; 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!" Halévy recorded his impressions of the premiere in
31659-411: 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
31842-403: 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
32025-473: Was intended as a song to Apollo and Diana . No trace exists, and it is unlikely that Bizet ever started it. A tendency to conceive ambitious projects, only to quickly abandon them, became a feature of Bizet's Rome years; in addition to Carmen Saeculare , he considered and discarded at least five opera projects, two attempts at a symphony, and a symphonic ode on the theme of Ulysses and Circe . After Don Procopio , Bizet completed only one further work in Rome,
32208-516: Was marked by significant disappointments. At least two projected operas were abandoned with little or no work done. Several competition entries, including a cantata and a hymn composed for the Paris Exhibition of 1867 , were unsuccessful. La Coupe du Roi de Thulé , his entry for an opera competition, was not placed in the first five; from the fragments of this score that survive, analysts have discerned pre-echoes of Carmen . On 28 February 1869,
32391-451: Was never completed; Bizet later adapted a theme from its final act as the basis of his 1875 overture, Patrie . 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. Bizet finished the score during the summer and was pleased with the outcome: "I have written a work that
32574-566: Was on 30 September 1863. Critical opinion was generally hostile, though Berlioz praised the work, writing that it "does M. Bizet the greatest honour". Public reaction was lukewarm, and the opera's run ended after 18 performances. It was not performed again until 1886. In 1862, Bizet had 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. When his Prix de Rome grant expired, Bizet found he could not make
32757-555: Was performed at the Académie to an enthusiastic reception. 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". 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
32940-414: 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. Bizet
33123-439: Was reportedly contemptuous of the music 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". 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. The search for
33306-415: Was unable to be present. The opera's first performance extended to four-and-a-half hours; the final act did not begin until after midnight. Afterwards, Massenet and Saint-Saëns were congratulatory, Gounod less so. According to one account, he accused Bizet of plagiarism: "Georges has robbed me! Take the Spanish airs and mine out of the score and there remains nothing to Bizet's credit but the sauce that masks
33489-488: Was unimpressed with the former but delighted with the latter: "Here you live with the ancients; you see their temples, their theatres, their houses in which you find their furniture, their kitchen utensils..." Bizet began sketching a symphony based on his Italian experiences, but made little immediate headway; the project, which became his Roma symphony , was not finished until 1868. On his return to Rome, Bizet successfully requested permission to extend his stay in Italy into
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