Bizet, Georges :: essays research papers

Georges Bizet   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Georges Bizet was born in Paris on October 25th, 1838. He was trained by his parents, who were musical, and admitted to the Paris Conservatoire just before his tenth birthday. There he studied counterpoint with Zimmerman and Gounod and composition with Halà ©vy, and under Marmontel's tuition he became a brilliant pianist. Bizet's 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.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  During his three years in Rome Bizet began or projected many compositions; only four survive, including the opera buffa, Don Procopio (not performed until 1906). Shortly after his return to Paris, in September 1861, his mother died; the composer consoled himself with his parents' maid, by whom he had a son in June 1862. He rejected teaching at the Conservatoire and the temptation to become a concert pianist, and completed his obligations under the terms of the Prix de Rome. The last of these, a one-act opà ©ra comique, La guzla de l'emir, was rehearsed at the Opà ©ra-Comique in 1863 but withdrawn when the Thà ©Ãƒ ¢tre-Lyrique director, who had been offered 100 000 francs to produce annually an opera by a Prix de Rome winner who had not had a work staged, invited Bizet to compose Les pà ªcheurs de perles.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  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 ensuing 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 pà ªcheurs despite an inept libretto. It received a good press but had only 18 performances.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  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 Genevià ¨ve, daughter of his former teacher, Halà ©vy, and the next year they suffered the privations caused by the Franco-Prussian war (Bizet enlisted in the National Guard).