Georges Bizet: biography, videos, interesting facts, creativity.

Georges Bizet

How else can you characterize the composer, who himself PI. Tchaikovsky called the genius, and his work - the opera "Carmen" - a real masterpiece, imbued with genuine feeling and true inspiration. Georges Bizet - an outstanding French composer who worked in the era of romanticism. His entire creative path was thorny, and life was a continuous obstacle course. However, despite all the difficulties and thanks to his extraordinary talent, the great Frenchman presented the world with a unique work that became one of the most popular in his genre and glorified the composer for all times.

A brief biography of Georges Bizet and many interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Short biography of Bizet

October 25, 1838 in Paris on the street Tour d'Auvergne in the family of the singing teacher Adolph-Haman Bizet and his wife Aime the boy was born, whom his loving parents named in honor of the three great emperors: Alexander César Leopold. However, at baptism, he received the simple French name Georges, which remained with him forever.

From the very first days of life, the child listened to a lot of music - these were delicate lullabies of the mother, as well as vocal lessons for the father’s students. When the child was four years old, Aime began to teach him musical notation, and in five years she sat her son at the piano. A biography of Bizet says that at the age of six Georges was identified at a school where an inquisitive child became very addicted to reading, and in the opinion of the mother, it distracted the boy from playing music for which the boy had to sit for hours.

The phenomenal musical abilities Georges possessed and the hard work gave their results. After the audition, which caused astonished delight among the professors of the Paris Conservatory, a nine-year-old child was enrolled as a volunteer at a prestigious educational institution in the class of the famous A. Marmontel. Having a lively character, a curious and emotional student who grasped everything on the fly, the professor liked him very much, it was a great pleasure for the teacher to work with him. But the ten-year-old boy did not only succeed in playing the piano. In the competition for solfeggio, having demonstrated phenomenal ear for music and memory, he earned the first prize and was honored to receive free additional lessons on the instrument and composition from the distinguished P. Zimmerman.

Georges’s conservatory training, as a performer, was nearing its end, and the path of a concert musician opened before him, although this prospect did not interest the young man at all. Since P. Zimmerman became involved with the composition with him, the young man has a new dream: to compose music for the theater. Therefore, having completed the piano course at A. Mormontel, Georges immediately entered the class of F. Halevy, under whose guidance he composed and enthusiastically composing, trying himself in various musical genres. In addition, Bizet enthusiastically worked in the organ class with Professor F. Benoit, where he achieved significant results, first winning the second and then the first prize of the Conservatory performed on the instrument.

In 1856, at the convincing insistence of F. Golevi, Georges takes part in the competition of the Academy of Fine Arts. The first, the so-called Roman Prize, gave the young talent an opportunity to have two years of internship in the Italian and a year in the German capitals. At the end of this practice, the young author was granted the right to premiere a one-act theatrical musical composition in one of the theaters of France. Unfortunately, this attempt was not entirely successful: this time no one was awarded the first prize. But good luck to the young composer accompanied in another creative contest, which announced Jacques Offenbach. For his theater, located on Boulevard Montmartre, in order to advertise, he announced a competition to create a small comedy musical performance with a limited number of performers. The winner was promised a gold medal and a prize of twelve hundred francs. “Dr. Miracle” was the name of the operetta, presented by an eighteen-year-old composer to the court of a respected jury. Commission decision: the prize is divided between two contestants, one of whom was Georges Bizet.

This victory not only introduced the French public to the name of the young composer, but also opened the door for him to the famous Offenbach “Fridays”, where only selected creative personalities were invited, and where he was honored to be represented by J. Rossini himself. In the meantime, the regular annual competition of the Academy of Arts for the Rome Prize was approaching, for which Georges was preparing hard, writing the cantata "Clovis and Clotilde". This time a triumph - he won the first prize in a musical composition, and together with the other five winners on December 21, 1857, to improve his skills, he went to the Eternal City.

Italy

In Italy, Georges traveled around the country, admiring the beautiful nature and works of art, read a lot, met interesting people. And Rome was so fond of him that he tried in every way to stay here, for which he even wrote a letter to the Minister of Education of France with a request to allow him to spend the third year not in Germany, but in Italy, to which he received a positive response. It was a period of difficult stage of human and creative formation of a young composer, which George later called the happiest and most carefree in his life. For Bizet, these were wonderful years of creative pursuit and first love. However, the young man still had to leave Rome two months ahead of schedule, as he received a letter from Paris with the news of his beloved mother’s illness. For this reason, at the end of September 1860, Bizet returned to Paris.

Homecoming

Hometown of a young man did not meet rosy. Georges’s carefree youth was over, and he now needed to think about how to earn his daily bread. Began the gray days, which were filled with boring routine work for him. Bizet earned his private lessons, and also, upon the request of the owner of the famous Parisian publishing house A. Shudan, worked on piano arrangements for orchestral scores of works by famous composers and composing entertainment music. Friends advised Georges to engage in performing activities, because even while studying at the conservatory, he had the reputation of a virtuoso musician. However, the young man understood that his career as a pianist could bring him quick success, but at the same time he would prevent him from fulfilling his lifelong dream - to become an opera composer.

There were a lot of problems with Bizet: it was necessary to pass the ode-symphony “Vaska da Gama” - the second report to the Academy of Arts and, besides that, as the Roman laureate, he had to write a funny one-act opera for the Opera-Comique Theater. The libretto was given to him, but the funny tunes to "Guzla Emir", the so-called performance, were not born at all. And how could they appear when the most beloved person and best friend was in serious condition. On September 8, 1861, George's mother died. One irreparable loss followed another. Six months later, not just a teacher, but a mentor and a support from Bizet - Fromental Halevy, passed away. Depressed by the loss of loved ones, Georges, in order to distract himself somehow, tried even more to get into work, but as a result he got a nervous overstrain and a breakdown.

Throughout 1863, Bizet worked on the new opera Pearl Seekers, and in 1864 he helped his father with the construction of housing in the forest area acquired by Adolf-Haman in Vezine. Now Georges has the opportunity to spend every summer in nature. Here he composed Ivan the Terrible with great enthusiasm, and in 1866 Perth Beauty. In 1867, Bizet was offered a job as a music columnist in a Parisian magazine. He published an article under the pseudonym Gaston de Betsy, which was truly well received, but, unfortunately, it was the first and the last.

At the same time, significant changes occur in Georges' personal life: he passionately falls in love with the daughter of his late teacher F. Halevy. The mother and closest relatives of Genevieve were against such a union, considering the composer an unworthy party for a girl, but Bizet was rather insistent, and as a result, on June 3, 1869, the young were married. Georges was unusually happy, he in every possible way guarded his young wife, who was younger than him by twelve years, and tried to please her in everything.

Dangerous times

In the summer of next year, the couple of Bizet went to Barbizon for four months - a place very popular with people of art. The composer intends to work here fruitfully on "Clarissa Garlow", "Calendal", "Griselda", but because of the Franco-Prussian war that began in July, Georges’s plans were not realized. The government has announced a widespread appeal to the National Guard. He didn’t get around this fate, and he even went through military training, but as a Rome scholar, he was released from military service and left for Barbizon to pick up his wife and return to Paris, where the republic was proclaimed again on September 4. The situation in the capital was complicated by the siege of the Prussians: famine began in the city. Relatives offered to move Georges to Bordeaux for a while, but he stayed and, as best he could, he helped the defenders of Paris by patrolling in the city and on the ramparts.

Bizet and Genevieve left the city only after the surrender and lifting of the blockade announced in January 1871. First, they visited relatives in Bordeaux, then moved to Compiegne, and waited the end of the troubled times of the Paris Commune in Wiesen. Returning to the capital in early June, Bizet immediately began work on his new composition, the opera Jamila, which premiered on May 22, 1872. And after two and a half weeks in the life of the composer, a joyful event occurred - Geneviève gave him a son. Inspired by such happiness, Georges went even deeper into work and gladly accepted the offer to sate A. Daude’s “Arlesianka” dramatic performance with good music. The premiere of the production, unfortunately, failed, but less than a month later, Bizet’s composition to the drama, which he transformed into a suite performed at one of the concerts, was a stunning success. Soon, Georges was again disappointed: at the end of October 1873, the composer was informed that the building of the Big Opera, where the premiere of his opera Sid was soon to take place, had burned to the ground and all performances were transferred to the Ventadur hall, which was not adapted to this production. However, after three months, the name of Bizet was again on everyone’s lips: the first and then the subsequent performances of his dramatic overture “The Fatherland” were a great triumph.

The last work of the composer

Throughout 1874, the composer spent working on a piece that was recommended to him by friends. From the very beginning, much confused Bizet: how an opera with a tragic ending could be staged on the Opera-Comedian stage, and this was how the short story of P. Merime “Carmen” ended. Some even proposed to change the final, because the author of the work had been dead for more than three years. But the worst thing is how the public will perceive the performance on the stage of people from the lower class. In spite of everything, the composer enthusiastically set about creating a piece that will later become a masterpiece for all times. As soon as the long-awaited premiere was appointed on March 3, 1875, rumors about an upcoming theater scandal spread through the city. The first act was greeted quite warmly, but after the second act, some of the public left the hall. When the third act ended, Bizet, in response to miserable public congratulations, announced that it was a failure. The next day, the Paris newspapers declared "Carmen" "scandalous" and "immoral," they wrote that Bizet had sunk very low, to the very social bottom.

The second performance took place every other day - on March 5, and was already greeted by the public not just warmly, but hotly, but the newspapers continued to discuss the failure of the premiere for another week. In that theater season, “Carmen” in Paris was staged thirty-seven times, and in fact not every performance sustained so many performances. Because of the failure of the premiere, Bizet suffered severely, but this added to the moral torment caused by the quarrel with his wife, as well as physical suffering due to chronic angina and rheumatism. At the end of May 1875, George with his entire family left Paris and headed for Bougival, hoping that it would be easier for him in nature. However, the composer didn’t get any better, the constant attacks exhausted him completely and on June 3 the doctor stated the death of Georges Bizet.

Interesting facts about Georges Bizet

• The composer’s father, Adolph Aman Bizet, before meeting Anna Leopoldina Aime, nee Delsar, Georges’s mother, had the profession of a hairdresser, but before the wedding, changed the nature of his activity, becoming a “man of art”, as the bride’s family demanded .
• The boy Georges lived according to a strict schedule: in the morning he was taken to the conservatory, then after classes he was brought home, fed and locked in the room where he worked until he fell asleep right behind the instrument due to fatigue.
• Since childhood, baby Bizet was so fond of reading that his parents had to hide books from him. At nine years old, the boy dreamed of becoming a writer, considering it to be much more interesting than sitting at the piano for whole days.

• From the biography of Bizet, we learn that, despite his talent, the young wunderkind often quarreled with his parents because of music lessons, he cried and was angry with them, but from childhood he realized that his abilities and perseverance of the mother would give results that will help him later in life.
• Awarded a Roman scholarship, Georges Bizet not only traveled a lot, but also got acquainted with different people. Frequently attending receptions at the French embassy, ​​he met there with an interesting person - Russian Ambassador Dmitry Nikolayevich Kiselyov. A strong friendship ensued between a twenty-year-old boy and a nearly sixty-year-old dignitary.
• Georges Bizet's uncle, Francois Delsarte, was once a famous singing teacher in Paris, but he gained greater fame as the inventor of a peculiar system of "posing the aesthetics of the human body", which later gained its followers. Some art critics believe that F. Delsarte is a man who in many ways predetermined the development of 20th century art. Even KS Stanislavsky recommended using his system for the initial training of actors.
• Contemporaries of Bizet spoke of him as a sociable, cheerful and kind person. Always a lot and selflessly working, he, nevertheless, loved to have fun with friends, being the author of all sorts of mischievous ideas and funny jokes.

• While still studying at the Conservatory, Georges Bizet had the reputation of a skilled pianist. Once, in the presence of Franz Liszt, he so masterfully performed the technically complex work of the composer, which led the author to delight: after all, the young musician easily played puzzling passages at the right pace.
• In 1874, Georges Bizet was awarded the Order of the "Legion of Honor" by the French government for his significant contribution to the development of musical art.
• After the first disastrous premiere, the drama A. Daudet "Alesles" returned to the stage only ten years later. The play has already enjoyed undoubted success with the audience, although contemporaries note the fact that the audience went to the show more because of listening to the music that adorned it by J. Bizet.
• The opera “Ivan the Terrible” by G. Bizet was never staged during the composer’s lifetime. Contemporaries even said that the composer was offended by burning the score, but the composition was discovered, but only in the late 1930s in the archives of the Conservatory and delivered for the first time in a concert version in occupational Paris in 1943 at the theater on Boulevard des Capucines. The organizers of the play tried to make sure that there was not a single German among the listeners, since the opera written in Russian could cause great irritation among them, especially as a change in World War II was not in favor of Germany. The opera by Ivan Bizet "Ivan the Terrible" has never been staged in Russia, since many historical facts in it are greatly distorted.

• Immediately after the death of Bizet, all the manuscripts of the composer listed in the will were transferred to the library of the Paris Conservatoire. However, many more of his papers and manuscripts were discovered by the executor of Emil Strauss (the second husband of the widow, J. Bizet), Mr. R. Sibyl, who, having determined the value of these documents, also immediately sent them to the conservatory archives. Therefore, descendants met many of the composer’s works only in the 20th century.
• Georges Bizet had two sons. The elder Jean appeared from a casual relationship with the handmaid of the Bizet family Maria Reuter. The second son - Jacques was born in marriage with Genevieve, nee Golevi.

Creativity Georges Bizet

The creative life of Georges Bizet can not be called lucky. Он очень часто испытывал разочарования из-за несправедливых критических высказываний по поводу своих произведений.Nevertheless, Bizet is a great composer who devoted his whole life to music and left descendants with a diverse legacy, including operas, operettas, symphony odes, oratorio, works for chorus accompanied by orchestra and a cappella, vocal cycles and works for piano and also compositions for a symphonic orchestra, including overtures, symphonies, and suites.

According to the biography of Bizet, already at the age of four, Georges first sat at the piano, at thirteen he tried himself as a musical composer, and a year later, after enrolling in the composition class of the conservatory, he was in intense creative search. Gradually, he developed his mastery, although at first there was absolutely no individual creative style. During the years of study at the Conservatory, Bizet created many different works, but they still had the influence of V.A. Mozart and Early L.V. Beethoven, as well as his older friend Charles Gounod. Compositions for choir and orchestra include “Waltz” and “Student Choir”, piano piece “Grand Concert Waltz”, operetta “Doctor Miracle”, cantata “Clovis and Clotilde”, and symphony No. 1 C -dur ("Youthful"), which is still being successfully performed at world concert venues.

The next important period in the composer's life was the years spent on an internship in Italy. It was a time of constant creative searches, as a result of which Bizet comes to the conclusion that his main musical interest is connected with the theater. Here he writes his first opera "Don Procopio", which, breaking the rules, sends for a creative report to the Academy of Fine Arts, although it was necessary to write and send a mass. Somewhat later, Bizet will still write the work on a religious story, but not for a report, but for a competition. But his "Te Deum" did not impress the jury, and the composer himself later noted that he was not inclined to write spiritual music. Also in this Italian period, an ode — the symphony “Vasco da Gama,” which served as a creative report for the Academy, and several pieces for orchestra, later included in the symphonic suite “Memoirs of Rome” —from the pen of a young composer.

After returning home, Bizet, commissioned by the Paris Opera-Comique, began work on the musical comedy play Guzla Emir, but the premiere of the opera did not take place, despite the fact that the theater was already undergoing rehearsals. The composer was not satisfied with his work, considered him vulnerable and doomed to failure. He took the score and immediately began to create a new work, which, as suggested by Bizet, would open up brilliant prospects for him. The opera in the final version was called "Pearl Seekers". In the same period, the young composer sends to the Academy of Fine Arts his third last report, consisting of Overture, Scherzo and the Funeral March. The premiere of "The Seekers" took place at the end of September 1863 and was quite well received by the public, and on top it received a laudatory review in an article written by G. Berlioz, although there were plenty of attacks from critics who accused Bizet of imitating Wagner.

Then the composer was working on an opera written on a plot from Russian history, but, unfortunately, the production of "Ivan the Terrible" did not take place during the composer's lifetime. Next, Georges worked on the execution of small orders from his publisher Shudan and the Belgian choral society: from his pen came a cycle of romances, as well as the choir a cappella "St. John of Patmos". The whole of 1966 was devoted to Bizet to the composition of the Perth Beauty, the first show of which took place at the end of December of the following year. This time the success was simply overwhelming, not only the audience was delighted with the new opera, but critics subsequently spoke well about the music of the performance.

In 1868, Georges, in an announced competition of state theaters, works on the opera “The Cup of the King of Ful”. Unfortunately, the score of this work was gone, only small fragments remained, which later became known as romances: "Abandoned", "Gascon", "Love, Dream", "Night", "Siren", "Cannot be forgotten" and duets: "Dream", "Forest Nymphs". During this period, Bizet really pays a lot of attention to vocal creativity. His romances, intended not only for the salon, but also for home music, were real theatrical miniatures. The same pore includes several composer's piano works worthy of attention, including the cycle “Songs of the Rhine”, “Great chromatic variations for the piano” and “Fantastic hunting”. Then there was the work on the “Little Orchestra Suite”, the cycle for two pianos “Children's Games”, the symphony “Rome” and, undoubtedly, the works in the operatic genre favorite by the composer: “Griselda”, “Clarissa Garlow”, “Calendar” and “Jamila” ". The premiere of the latter, despite the cries of the public "bravo", in the opinion of Bizet was definitely a failure. However, reviews in the press about the work were very interesting and even passionate. Someone thought the opera was not emotional and devoid of color, and someone called it a bold experiment that brought the composer great success. Unfortunately, only the compositions written by Bizet at the end of his life, including the music for A. Daude’s drama Arlesianka and the opera Carmen, brought him not only recognition, but also truly world fame.

Personal life

Bizet was a very shy young man and did not find his appearance attractive for women. When dealing with the weaker sex, he was always so worried that his face was reddened, his hands were sweating, and his tongue was wobbling when talking. With his first love, George met in Italy, her name was Giuseppa. It was a funny and flirtatious pretty girl, from which the composer was crazy and made plans for a happy life together, inviting her to come to France. Unfortunately, this relationship did not continue, because due to illness, his mother had to urgently return home.

The next passion of passion George was an experienced 42-year-old woman in love, who spent her youth and youth in brothels, a circus, a theater, and also a variety show. She was older than Bizet by fourteen years. In a decent society, she was not mentioned, but in Paris she was known by such names as the beautiful Mogador, Madame Lionel, the Countess de Shabrillan, the writer Celeste Vinard. Mogador subdued the young composer with her recklessness and incredible female magnetism. This woman's passion for Georges was not long. Vulnerable Bizet immensely suffered from changes in her mood. One day, during an angry fit, Mogador poured cold water on him and drove him out into the street. As a result of this incident, Georges became very sick with a sore throat; besides, the result of the final break with the scandalous Madame was a state of deepest depression, from which Bizet helped strengthened creative work, as well as acquaintance with a young charming girl - his teacher's daughter, Genevieve Halevi.

The composer was so fascinated by the seventeen-year-old girl, her tenderness and purity, that, despite the objections of relatives from both sides, he set a goal to marry Genevieve. The wedding took place two years later on June 3, 1869, and three years later, the Bizet family was enlarged with a son, who was given the name Jacques. Georges was very fond of his wife, but despite this, the composer’s family life and personal happiness began to crumble like a house of cards. The reasons for this were Genevieve's inability to forgive her husband's frequent creative failures, and, besides this, her unhealthy imagination was taken by the successful pianist Eli-Miriam Delabord, with whom she did not hide her ties with anyone. All these life disappointments and caused the imminent death of Georges Bizet, the secret of which still can not unravel any biographer of the composer.

Music by Georges Bizet at the cinema

Georges Bizet’s music is currently very popular, and directors from around the world often use it in the soundtracks of their films. Undoubtedly, all records broke excerpts from the opera "Carmen" such as the overture, Habanera, the march and aria of Toreodor, as well as fragments from the suite Arlesianka and the famous aria from the opera Pearl Seekers - "Je crois entende". It is impossible to list all the films where this wonderful music sounds, but here are some of them:

Being a phenomenally gifted person, Georges Bizet created such magnificent works that now admire hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Many years passed before the name of Bizet took the place that it rightfully deserves, among other great composers. His untimely death in the heyday of creativity is an irreplaceable and very significant loss for the whole world music culture.