Georges Bizet

The composer of Carmen, who widened French opera's sense of the real

Related

RomanticOperaAriaOverture

Who he was

Georges Bizet (1838–1875) was born in Paris to a mother who was a pianist and a father who later taught singing. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at nine and won the Prix de Rome at nineteen, spending three years in Italy. Back in Paris he wrote operas, incidental music and teaching pieces, supporting himself by copying and arranging. Carmen opened at the Opéra-Comique in March 1875; three months later he died of a heart attack, aged thirty-six.

His place

Bizet belongs to late French Romanticism, yet he neither expanded the orchestra like Berlioz nor rebuilt opera like Wagner. His strength was stage sense: he knew at which second a melody must seize an audience. The music for L'Arlésienne and the Spanish colour of Carmen made Paris feel that the exotic could be intimate.

What to hear

Listen first for the dance skeleton: the habanera and seguidilla in Carmen are character, carried by rhythm itself. Then sharp scoring: L'Arlésienne conjures countryside and fate with very few instruments. Next, chromatic shadow: his tunes are bright, but the harmony often lays a layer of unease beneath them. Finally, Bizet at the piano: the Variations chromatiques and Chants du Rhin show he was not only an opera composer.

Key works

• Operas: Carmen, Les pêcheurs de perles, La jolie fille de Perth
• Incidental music: L'Arlésienne
• Orchestral: Symphony in C, Roma
• Piano: Chants du Rhin, Variations chromatiques, Jeux d'enfants

Influence

Carmen brought realist characters onto the opera stage and became one of the most performed operas in the world; Tchaikovsky predicted it would become the most popular opera of all. With a single work, Bizet widened what opera would tolerate as real.

Sources

• 比才生平、罗马大奖与《卡门》1875 年首演，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Bizet, Georges"；本文为原创表述
• 法国十九世纪歌剧与喜歌剧院的制度背景，参通行比才研究；实例 why 为本站听辨提示

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