Georges Bizet - lll

Georges Bizet[n 1] (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875), registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, 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 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 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 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 Bizet's final opera, Carmen,
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,
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.

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