Bizet, Georges :: essays research papers

Georges BizetGeorges Bizet was born in Paris on October 25th, 1838. He was trained by his parents, who were musical, and admitted to the Paris Conservatoire yet before his tenth birthday. There he studied counterpoint with Zimmerman and Gounod and composition with Halvy, and under Marmontels tuition he became a brilliant pianist. Bizets exceptional powers as a composer are already apparent in the products of his Conservatoire years, notably the Symphony in C, a work of precocious genius dating from 1855 (but not performed until 1935). In 1857 Bizet shared with Lecocq a prize offered by Offenbach for a setting of the one-act operetta Le Docteur Miracle later that year he set out for Italy as holder of the coveted Prix de Rome. During his three years in Rome Bizet began or projected many compositions only four-spot survive, including the opera buffa, Don Procopio (not performed until 1906). Shortly after his getting even to Paris, in September 1861, his mother died the composer co nsoled himself with his parents maid, by whom he had a son in June 1862. He rejected teaching at the Conservatoire and the temptation to sustain a concert pianist, and completed his obligations under the terms of the Prix de Rome. The last of these, a one-act opra comique, La guzla de lemir, was rehearsed at the Opra-Comique in 1863 but withdrawn when the Thtre-Lyrique director, who had been offered carbon 000 francs to produce annually an opera by a Prix de Rome winner who had not had a work staged, invited Bizet to compose Les pcheurs de perles. Bizet completed it in four months. It was produced in September 1863, but met with a generally cool reception an uneven work, with stiff characterization, it is notable for the skilful scoring of its exotic numbers. In the ensue years Bizet earned a living arranging other composers music and giving piano lessons. Not until December 1867 was another opera staged - La jolie fille de Perth, which shows a surer dramatic mastery than Les pch eurs despite an inept libretto. It received a good press but had only 18 performances. 1868 was a year of crisis for Bizet, with more abortive works, attacks of quinsy and a reexamination of his religious stance and his attitude to music grew deeper. In June 1869 he married Genevive, daughter of his causation teacher, Halvy, and the next year they suffered the privations caused by the Franco-Prussian war (Bizet enlisted in the National Guard).