Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet was born on 25 October 1838 as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet. His father, Adolphe Armand Bizet, was a singing teacher, and his mother, Aimée Léopoldine Delsarte Bizet, was a pianist. It is therefore hardly surprising that Bizet showed exceptional musical talent from an early age, which gained him entry to the prestigious Paris Conservatoire at just nine years old. There he studied under teachers such as Charles Gounod and Fromental Halévy—his future father-in-law—whose daughter, Geneviève Halévy, he married in 1869.

At the age of 16, Bizet composed his first symphony in C major. It remained unknown for many years until it was discovered in 1933 in the archives of the Paris Conservatoire library. The score had been deposited there by the composer Reynaldo Hahn, who had previously received it from Bizet’s widow, Geneviève. The symphony received its first performance on 26 February 1935 and was celebrated as an early masterpiece by Bizet.

In 1857 Bizet won the Prix de Rome, earning a scholarship for several years of study in Italy. There he devoted himself to composing larger works, including orchestral and choral pieces as well as opera fragments. After returning to Paris, he initially struggled to establish himself, as many of his operas received little attention. These included Les Pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La Jolie fille de Perth (1872). Like other young composers of his generation such as Charles Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns, Bizet spent much of his career in the shadow of more successful contemporaries including Hector Berlioz, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Fromental Halévy.

Bizet’s greatest masterpiece is widely considered to be his opera Carmen (1875), which premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris that same year. He died only a few months after the premiere of a heart attack, at the age of 36.