Opera Books
THE OPERA
EDITED BY
ALBERT HILLERY BERGH
VOLUME III.
1909
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Bizet.
Charles César Léopold Bizet, known to
his friends and the world at large as Georges Bizet, was horn in Paris,
October 25, 1838. His early life was passed in a thoroughly artistic
atmosphere, for his father was a well-known teacher of music, his mother
an accomplished pianist, and his uncle, the founder of the Delsarte
system, was a really great musician. As a child Bizet, although
proficient in music at an early age, is said not to have greatly cared
for it, and to have had ambitions in a literary rather than a musical
direction. At nine years of age, however, he was already a student at
the Conservatory, and soon began to make marked progress under Mormontel,
the pianist, Benoist, who taught Bizet to play the organ, and Zimmerman,
from whom he learned harmony. Halévy taught him composition, and many
years later the student married the daughter of his old instructor, and
finished his master’s opera Noah.
Bizet won many prizes at the Conservatoire, and in 1857 shared
with Lecocq the Offenbach first prize for an operetta entitled
Docteur Miracle, which was later produced with considerable success
at one of the Parisian theatres.
Not long after this he won the Prix de Rome, and continued his
studies in Italy. The result was the
{26} brilliant little opera
Don Procopio, greatly admired by musicians for its bold
originality. This was followed on his return to Paris by Vasco da
Gama, a symphonic ode which was not successful, and was withdrawn
after a few representations.
Bizet’s next work of importance was the opera Les Pêcheurs de
Perles, which had hardly any better success than its predecessor,
the symphony. The marked conventionality into which the composer had
strangely fallen prevented his work from making a lasting appeal, and,
although an industrious worker, he became so much disappointed that he
gave up composition for a time, and made his living by teaching music
and making arrangements of airs from operas by others, a work in which
he was very skillful. The Fair Maid of Perth was produced in
December, 1867. It was not a notable success by any means, but Bizet
appears to have been so much encouraged by its reception that he wrote
to a friend about this time, “I have found my path, now I must advance
in it. Il faut monter, monter, toujours monter!” In 1870, shortly
after his marriage to Geneviève Halévy, he began two operas,
Griseldis and Clarissa Harlow, neither of which was ever
finished. It was at this time that he composed the overture La Patrie,
and the music of Daudet’s L’Arlesienne, afterwards published
as two orchestral suites. The latter has frequently been performed in
America.
Djamileh appeared in 1872. This was a weird conception,
which failed to make a lasting impression. The plot was considered slow
and the music too exotic and sombre. It is interesting chiefly as
showing Bizet’s development as a composer. Then followed Ivan the
Terrible, {27}
never performed, and an overture called Ossian the Hunter, two
movements of a symphony, and several songs. Judged by these works
Georges Bizet had been looked upon rather as an accomplished musician
than a promising composer, for he had actually written nothing that had
established his reputation. When L’Arlesienne was produced, however,
four months after Djamileh. it was observed that Bizet had
matured, and that he wrote as a master. L’Arlesienne is in
certain ways a greater opera than Carmen, though far less
popular. The libretto affords excellent opportunities for the display of
Bizet’s unusual dramatic power, and his innate originality and skill.
Shortly after the production of Djamileh Bizet wrote to a
friend: “I have been asked to write a three-act piece for the Opéra
Comique…. It will be gay, but with a gaiety that admits of style.” The
composer had in mind the opera that everyone knows, that musicians and
laymen alike delight in, that astonishes by its enduring vitality, its
freshness and vigor, and that in itself has been sufficient to secure
its composer’s enduring fame—Carmen, to-day one of the most
popular operas in the repertory.
Yet this musical and dramatic artistic feat, this opera with an
atmosphere of transfiguring and all-pervasive beauty, was coldly
received by the public at the time of its first production in 1875. The
reason for its apparent failure is almost inexplicable. Pigot, Bizet’s
able biographer, believed that the stupid public was laboring under what
he calls um aberration passagère, and hence entirely failed to
appreciate the work. It is true that the prelude to the second act was
encored, and {28}
that the toreador’s song and the quintet were heartily applauded, but
this was all the recognition vouchsafed the charm of the wonderful
score.
Bizet, in despair at the cold reception of Carmen, is said
to have walked the streets of Paris until dawn, accompanied by a
sympathetic friend and fellow-musician. The critics largely disagreed in
regard to the merits of Carmen, yet united in attacking it as
super-radical and daring, immoral, and even commonplace, adducing as an
example of the latter fault the toreador’s song in the first act.
In 1878 Bizet’s unlucky masterpiece was revived in London by Minnie
Hauck, the prima donna, and for the first time received full and
well-deserved recognition as a great opera. The production at once
placed Bizet in the rank of the leading modern French composers. The
story was discovered to have a universal appeal, that it was vital,
dramatic and impressive, and that the music was thoroughly
characteristic and spirited in action. The composer of Carmen
always endeavored to put a great deal of local color into his
compositions, and in his last work he introduced many of the national
rhythms of the Spanish, largely borrowed from the Moors.
The tardy popularity of Carmen, however, came far too late
to gratify its creator. Bizet for years had overworked, and now, at the
age of thirty-six, his strength began to fail, hastened by
disappointment at the fiasco of Carmen. “It is extraordinary,” he
wrote, “that I should feel so old.” Three months after the first
performance he died of heart failure.
Few compositions were left unpublished at the death
{29}
of Bizet, as he appears to have destroyed much that he had written.
Although he died literally broken-hearted at the beginning of a great
career, Bizet had not been totally without recognition from the general
public of his very evident merit as a composer. L’Arlesienne and
others of his works had given him a really enviable reputation, and he
had been decorated with the ribbon of the Legion d’Honneur. ]le has been
highly praised by his friends as an accomplished musician who never
performed in public. He also had some reputation as a critic and
librettist, and it has been said that had not Bizet adopted music as a
profession he would undoubtedly have been remarkable as an author, for
his literary compositions show originality and brilliancy.
Bizet’s feeling for dramatic effect was one of the sources of his
power. He was skillful in presenting contrasts, as, for instance, that
between the fascinating and dangerous Carmen, and the simple, girlish
Micaela. Bizet always observed the musical proprieties, however, and
musical tone was never sacrificed to the exigencies of the dramatic
situation. It is obvious that he has the defects of his qualities, and
that analysis of his scores will reveal the fact that in many passages
his conceptions are striking and showy, rather than thoroughly musical
and restrained. He had all the Frenchman’s love of glitter and shade, of
laughter swiftly followed by the tragic note, and for this reason his
best known opera appears to many to be over-sensational, and to those
who enjoy the music of Gounod to be lacking in tenderness and depth. On
the whole, however, it is generally conceded that in Carmen Bizet
produced a great opera—an opera which is “thoroughly dramatic
{30}
and well adapted to the stage,” and yet “every page of which is music.”
Indeed, Carmen has been characterized by some critics as the most
brilliant opera of the century. It has also been pointed out that
Carmen is one of the few operas in which drama and music are so well
balanced that “there is not an ounce more of drama than there is of
music.
Georges Bizet’s other works, in addition to those named, are the
opera Numa, produced at Paris in 1875; Jeux d’Enfants, a
suite; considerable piano music, including Venice, a song without words,
a Marine Nocfume, and transcriptions for two and four hands, and
twenty-six songs, among the most popular of which is Les Adieux de
l’Hostesse Arabe.
Opera by Georges Bizet. Libretto by E
Cormon and Michel Carré.
Characters: Zurga; Nadir; Nourabad; Leila; priests, women,
fishermen, etc.
Place, coast of Ceylon. Time, the last century. First produced at
Paris in 1863.
The Fakirs or Priests of Brahma have elected Zurga king of the
pearl fishers on the coast of Ceylon. Nadir, a friend of Zurga, returns
from a long voyage. The two had parted years ago on account of a woman
both had loved. Each had then promised the other never again to see her
whom he adored. Leila is led out by the priests to pray for the success
of the fishing for pearls. As they bring her to fulfil this duty, the
priests admonish her that she may not speak to any man. As
{31}
she approaches, Zurga leads the fishermen away, and she takes her place
upon the rock where she is to make her devotions. For only a moment her
veil is lifted, but in that instant Nadir recognizes her as the woman he
loves; yet he recalls his vow never to speak to her again. Nevertheless
he finds that Leila still loves him, and to keep his resolution is
beyond his power.
Leila is left for the night in the cold,
dreary temple; she is afraid alone, but soon hears the music of Nadir’s
lyre and is comforted by the sound. Then they meet at last, forget their
vows that would keep them apart, and Leila promises to go away with
Nadir. At this juncture the high priest discovers them ; he runs and
tells the people, and crowds gather with cries of “Sacrilege!” Just as
the two are seized, Zurga arrives. He wishes to set them both at
liberty, but when the priest tears off the woman’s veil, disclosing the
features of Leila, Zurga recognizes her at once, and in a jealous rage
he condemns to death both the girl of his heart and his dear friend who
is her lover.
Presently Zurga is alone in his tent repenting of his severity.
There Leila comes to him. She pleads to be allowed to die alone, for she
would save Nadir, who, she swears, is not to blame, but wandered by
chance to the temple. Zurga is enraged anew at her declaration of love
for his rival, and declares that her prayer alone condemns her. Then it
is that, by a necklace she wears, the King of the Pearl Fishers learns
that it was Leila who once saved his life. Thereupon Zurga begins to
plan, while the funeral pyre is being prepared by the priests for the
condemned, to manage an escape for the lovers by having the village set
on fire, thinking that
{32} in the excitement
attention will be diverted from the two. But the priests learn of his
intention, and, instead of saving the girl and his rival, he is himself
forced to mount the funeral pyre, prepared for Nadir and Leila, and to
perish in the sacrificial flames.
Opera in one act by Georges Bizet.
Libretto by Louis Gallet.
Characters Harun; Splendiano, his secretary; Djamileh, a slave
trader; Almée, a dancing-girl; women of the harem, servants.
Place, Turkey. Time, Middle Ages. First produced at Paris in 1872.
The plot of this short and charming opera is very simple. Harun, a
rich young Turk, has enjoyed life to its dregs. He gives dinners, plays
at dice, has mistresses, but his heart remains cold, for he disbelieves
in love, and only cares for absolute freedom in all his actions. His
life withal seems shallow and devoid of interest. Every month he engages
a new female slave, with whom he idles away his days, but at the end of
this time she is discarded. His antipathy for love partly arises from
the knowledge of his’ father’s unhappy married life.
At the opening of the scene Harun lies on a conch smoking, too lazy
to move a finger, and lulled into dreams by the boatsmen’s songs. At
last he rouses himself from his lethargy, and tells his secretary and
former tutor, Splendiano, of his visions. The latter is looking over his
master’s accounts, and dryly responds that if
{33} he continues his style
of living he will be ruined before the end of the year. This scarcely
moves the young man, to whom a year seems a long way off. He also takes
it coolly when Splendiano remarks that the latest favorite’s month is
up, and that iDjamileh is to leave towards evening, to make room for
another beauty. Harun carelessly charges his servant to look out for
another slave.
When Splendiano sees that Djamileh’s unusual beauty has failed to
impress his master, he owns to a tender feeling for her himself, and
asks for permission to win the girl. Harun readily grants this request,
but when he sees Djamileh enter with sad and dejected looks, he tenderly
inquires what ails her. She sings him a strange and melancholy gazul
about a girl’s love for a hero, and he easily guesses her secret. In
order to console her, he presents her with a beautiful necklace, and
grants her her freedom, at which she brightens visibly, but refuses it.
Harun however has no idea of losing either heart or liberty, and when
some friends visit him he turns from her to join them in a game, leaving
her unveiled and exposed to their insolent stares and admiration.
Djamileh, covered with confusion, begins to weeps at which
Splendiano interposes, trying to console her by the offer of his hand.
Scornfully repulsed by her, he reveals to her the cruel trifling of his
master, and her approaching dismissal, and drives her almost to despair.
But she resolves to show her love to her master before she leaves him,
and for this purpose entreats Splendiano to let her disguise herself and
impersonate the new slave, promising to be his if her plans should fail,
but {34}
vowing to herself to choose death rather than leave her beloved master.
The evening approaches, and with it the slave-dealer with a whole
bevy of beautiful young girls. Harun turns from them indifferently,
ordering Splendiano to choose for him, but the slave-dealer insists upon
displaying the pearl of them all, young Almée, who dances the most weird
and passionate figures until she sinks back exhausted. She is selected,
but Splendiano gives 200 zechines to the dealer, who consents to let her
change clothes with Djamileh. When the latter reenters ilarun’s room
veiled, he is astonished to find her so shy and sad. In vain he tries to
caress her, as she escapes him, but he recognizes her when she unveils
herself. With wild and passionate entreaty she begs him to let her be a
slave again, as she prefers his presence to freedom and fortune. At
first he hesitates, but true love conquers, and he takes her in his
arms. He has found his heart at last, and owns that love is stronger
than any other charm.
Opera in four acts by Bizet. Libretto
by Meilhac and Halévy, founded upon the story of Carmen, by
Prosper Merimée.
Characters: Don José, a brigadier; Escamillo, a toreador; fl
Dancairo and Il Remendado, smugglers; Zuniga; Morales; Carmen, a gypsy;
Micaëla, a peasant girl; Frasquita, Mercedes, gypsies; Lillas Pastia, an
innkeeper; a guide, officers, dragoons, youths, cigar girls, gypsies,
smugglers. {35}
Place, Seville. Time, 1820. First produced at Paris in 1875.
Carmen, the heroine of this popular opera, is a Spanish gypsy,
fickle and wayward, but endowed with all the wild graces of her nation.
She is adored by her people, and has many of the stronger sex at her
feet. She is betrothed to Don José, a brigadier of the Spanish army, but
soon grows tired of him, and awakens his jealousy by a thousand
caprices.
Don José has another sweetheart, the lovely Micaëla, waiting for
him at home, but she was forgotten as soon as he saw the proud gypsy.
Micaëla seeks him out, bringing to him the portrait and the benediction
of his mother, even her kiss, which she gives with blushes. His
tenderness is gone, however, so far as Micaëla is concerned, as soon as
he has cast one look into the lustrous eyes of Carmen. This passionate
creature has involved herself in a quarrel and wounded one of her
companions, a laborer in a cigarette manufactory. She is to be taken to
prison, but Don José lets her off, promising to meet her in the evening
at an inn kept by a man named Lillas Pastia, where they are to dance the
Seguedilla.
In the second act we find them there, together with the whole band
of gypsies. Don José, more and more infatuated by Carmen’s charms, is
willing to join the vagabonds, who are at the same time smugglers. He
accompanies them in a dangerous enterprise of this kind, but no sooner
has he sacrificed honor for Carmen than she begins to tire of his
attentions. José has pangs of conscience, he belongs to another sphere
of society and his feelings are of a softer kind than those
{36}
of the wild cigarette girl. She transfers her affections to a
bull-fighter named Escamillo, another of her suitors, who returns her
love more passionately. A quarrel ensues between the two rivals.
Escamillo’s knife breaks, and he is about to be killed by Don José, when
Carmen intervenes, holding back his arm. Don José, seeing that she has
duped him, now becomes her deadly foe, filled with undying hatred, and
longing for revenge Mieaëla, the tender-hearted maiden, who follows him
everywhere like a guardian angel, reminds him of his lonely mother, and,
like everyone else, advises him to let the fickle Carmen alone—Carmen
who never loved the same man for more than six weeks. But in vain, till
Micaëla tells him of the dying mother, asking incessantly for her son.
Then at last he consents to go with her, but not without wild
imprecations on his rival and his faithless love.
In the fourth act the scene changes to Madrid. There is to be a
bull-fight, and Escamillo, its hero, has invited the whole company to be
present in the circus. Don José also appears there, trying for the last
time to regain his bride. Carmen, though warned by Frasquita, a
fellow-gypsy, has no fear. She meets her old lover outside the arena,
where he tries hard to touch her heart. He kneels at her feet, vowing
never to forsake her and to be one of her own people; but Carmen, though
wayward, is neither a coward nor a liar, and boldly declares that her
affections are given to the bull-fighter, whose triumphs are borne to
their ears on the shouts of the multitude. Almost beside himself with
love and rage, José seizes her hand - and attempts to drag her
{37}
away, but she escapes from him, and throwing the ring, José’s gift, at
his feet, rushes to the door of the arena. He overtakes her, however,
and just as the trumpets announce Escamillo’s victory, in a perfect fury
of despair he stabs her through the heart, and the victorious
bull-fighter finds his beautiful bride a corpse.
Last updated March 01, 2007