When “Carmen“ was first performed in Paris, Georges Bizet was already an established musician, but not a big name for the audience. The opera would change the history of musical theater, but its author would not live to see this success. Bizet died on June 3, 1875, just three months after the premiere, at the age of 36.
Georges Bizet was born on October 25, 1838 in Paris into a family of musicians. His birth name was Alexandre-César-Léopold Bizet, but he remains in history by his middle name. He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 10, and in 1857, when he was 19, he won the “Prix de Rome“ - one of the most prestigious awards for young French composers. That same year he presented his first stage work - the one-act operetta “Doctor Miracle“, whose award he shared with Léon Lecoq.
Before “Carmen“ came years of disappointment
During his three years in Rome, Bizet wrote the opera “Don Procopio“, and after his return to France he created “Les Chasse des Pearles“ and “La Belle d'Or“Perth“. Both works were staged, but they did not achieve lasting success. The same fate initially befell “Jamile“, presented in 1872.
A curious twist occurred with the music for the drama “La Arlesienne“ by Alphonse Daudet. The stage work was not well received, but the orchestral suite, extracted from the score, immediately won over the audience. This success encouraged Bizet at a time when his career was marked by financial difficulties and a series of unsuccessful premieres.
The Opera That Seemed Too Bold
In 1873, Bizet agreed to write a new opera for the Opéra-Comique. He chose the novella “Carmen“ by Prosper Mérimée as the plot, and the libretto was entrusted to Henri Meillac and Ludovic Halévy. The action was transferred to Seville, but the composer himself had never visited Spain. His Spain is a musical picture, built of rhythms, melodies and ideas familiar to the Parisian audience.
Work on the opera met with resistance even in rehearsals. The orchestra members found some passages difficult to perform, the chorus members did not accept the requirement to smoke and fight on stage, and the theater management was worried about the murder in the finale. The story of an independent woman who refuses to belong to anyone seemed too daring for the family audience of the Opéra-Comique.
The failure that turns into a triumph
„Carmen“ was first performed on March 3, 1875 in Paris. Critics reacted sharply, and some of the audience was embarrassed by the sensuality, violence and realistic characters. However, the opera was not immediately withdrawn - after the premiere there were 47 more performances.
In October of the same year, “Carmen“ was staged in Vienna in a version with recitatives instead of spoken dialogues. It was then that its international recognition began. The bullfighter's song, “Habanera“ and the Aria of the flower gradually made the opera part of the world's musical memory.
Bizet died in Bougival on June 3, 1875. The cause is attributed to heart attacks, but the claim that the failure of “Carmen“ itself caused his death is a later biographical interpretation. The composer passed away before the opera became one of the most performed titles in the world - a fate that made his name almost inseparable from that of his Carmen.
Sources: lemonde.fr, theguardian.com