George Bizet short biography. Biographies, stories, facts, photos

George Bize. The biography of this legendary French composer begins on October 25, 1838. It was on this day that Alexandre-Cesar-Leopold Bizet was born in Paris, whom his relatives named George. The boy was brought up in an atmosphere of boundless love for music, since his uncle and father were singing teachers, and his mother played the piano. It was my mother who became George's first music teacher and mentor. The gift manifested itself in the boy in early childhood, from the age of four he knew the notes.

At the age of 10, George entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied for 9 years. During the years of study, the young man wrote quite a few musical compositions, including a symphony, which is successfully performed today. In the last year of his studies, the guy composed a cantata on a legendary ancient story. With her, Bizet took part in a competition for writing a one-act operetta, where she was awarded a prize. After graduating from the conservatory composer Bizet in 1857 - 1860 lived in Italy. There, George traveled a lot, got acquainted with the local way of life. During his stay in Italy, he wrote the Vasco da Gama symphony-cantata, as well as several orchestral pieces, some of which were later included in the symphonic suite Memories of Rome.

When Bizet returned to Paris, hard times began for him. It was not easy for him to achieve recognition, George earned money with private lessons, composed music to order, worked with other people's compositions. Some time later, his mother passed away. Due to the constant overstrain, the sharp decline in the creative forces that accompanied Bizet throughout his life, the brilliant composer did not live long. In 1863, George presented the opera The Pearl Seekers, and in 1867 he wrote another opera, The Belle of Perth. The year 1868 was difficult in the composer's biography, he began to have serious health problems, as well as a creative crisis. In 1869 he married his teacher's daughter, and in 1870 he enlisted in the National Guard.

The life and work of George Bizet. Mature years of the composer.

The 70s were the heyday of Bizet's creative biography. In 1871, he began to study music again and composed the suite for piano "Children's Games". After a short time, he composed a one-act romantic opera "Jamile", in 1872 the public saw the play "Arlesian", the music for which was written by Bizet. This opera confirmed the creative maturity of the composer. It is generally accepted that it was she who contributed to the emergence of an operatic masterpiece, which George Bizet wrote, "Carmen".

Despite the fact that "Carmen" Bizet, which is a pleasure to listen to, was written specifically for staging at the Comic Opera, it belongs to this genre only formally, since in fact Carmen is a musical drama in which the author vividly depicted folk scenes and characters.

The premiere of the work took place in 1875, but it was unsuccessful. Bizet took it very hard, it greatly affected his health. George Bizet's opera "Carmen" was appreciated only after the death of the author, she was recognized as the pinnacle of Bizet's work a year after the failed premiere. Tchaikovsky called the opera a real masterpiece that reflects the strongest musical aspirations of an entire era, he was convinced that Carmen would enjoy timeless popularity.

The uniqueness of the work of the great composer was expressed not only in the highest merits of his works, but also in Bizet's deep understanding of theatrical music. George Bizet died on June 3rd, 1875 due to a heart attack.

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era of romanticism.

1. Biography. early years

4. During the Paris Commune

Opera Comic theater in Paris.

The events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune frightened him as a representative of the bourgeoisie, but they wiped him out of his aspirations for truthful, realistic art. Bizet was already married and moved in dangerous times to a quieter area of ​​Paris.

In the 70s - the period of Bizet's creative maturity - the opera Jamile (based on the poem "Namuna" by A. Musset, 1871), music for the drama "Arlesian" (1872) by A. Daudet were created. Having mastered the rhythm and intonation features of folk tunes, almost without resorting to quotations, Bizet authentically recreated the character of oriental and Provencal music in these works. These scores are distinguished by the mastery of the expressive means of the orchestra. 2 orchestral suites from the music to "Arlesienne" are very popular (1st created by the author, performed in 1872, 2nd - by the composer E. Giraud, performed in 1885).

5. The epic with the opera "Carmen"

The composer's desire to democratize operatic art, the desire to get rid of theatrical clichés and conventions were vividly expressed in the opera Carmen (based on the short story by P. Mérimée, 1874). The libretto of the opera was created by Ludovic Halévy, cousin of Georges Bizet's wife, whom he married for a year. Most of the music was written in two months in the suburbs of Paris - this is Bougival, where the family had a country house.

The main role was entrusted to the singer Galli-Marie. Celestine Galli-Marie was not satisfied with the habanera and the composer reworked it several times. Georges Bizet has never been to Spain, so he used Spanish dance music, its themes. He "borrowed" the theme of the habanera from the work of the Spanish composer Sebastian Herod, which was then a common practice. But he made a piece of music out of it, which has an independent value.

The opera was written by order of the management of the Opera Comic Theatre. A small theater then served the theatrical needs of respectable and narrow-minded bourgeois. In addition, the theater became a place for informal meetings of parents, who were looking for wealthy suitors for their daughters. Even their attitude to operas was regulated by bourgeois tastes. Heroes should be of noble birth, lead noble, suffer beautifully, they could only die for a significant purpose.

For the first time, representatives of the "lower classes" - a cigar factory worker and a mercenary soldier - performed on the French opera stage, truthfully revealing the experiences and passions of people of low, humble origin. The opera embodies the Spanish national musical flavor, the richness and variety of folk scenes, the tense course of dramatic events. At the premiere at the Opera Comedian (1875), "Carmen" was sharply negatively received by the bourgeois public, saw neither noble characters nor noble behavior between lovers. The rejection of the new opera and the indignation of the bourgeoisie was supported by the then bourgeois press. Newspapers printed articles calling the opera a "social dump". A wild gypsy and a soldier, whose behavior is on the verge of pathology, could not teach the nobility of respectable daughters from bourgeois families. In addition, still married, Carmen dies for the sake of freedom - her own feelings ...

6. Last years and death

8. The most important works

Operas and operettas

• La prtresse, operetta (1854)
• "Miracle Doctor" (Le docteur Miracle) opera buff (1857)
• "Don Procopio" (Don Procopio) opera buff (1859)
• "Pearl Seekers" (Les pcheurs de perles), opera (1863)
• "Ivan IV", grand opera (secondary)
• "Beauty of Perth" (La jolie fille de Perth) opera (1867)
• "Numa", opera (1871)
• "Arlesian" (L "Arlsienne),"music for the play" (1872)
• "Jamilya" (Djamileh) one-act opera (1872)
• "Carmen", opera (1875)

Symphonic music

• Symphony No. 1 in C-dur (1855)
• Symphony No. 2 "Roma" (destroyed by the author)
• Suite "Arlesian" (from Bizet's music for the play Arlesian, 1872)
• Suite from the opera "Carmen"

Other

• choirs with orchestra and a cappella;
• pieces for piano,
• piano duets;
• romances, songs;

Alexandre Cesar Leopold Bizet, at baptism received the name Georges (1838-1875), French composer of the Romantic period, author of orchestral works, romances, piano pieces, as well as operas, the most famous of which was Carmen.

Georges Bizet was born on October 25, 1838 in Paris. The future composer received his first music lessons from his musician parents.

The boy's outstanding abilities showed up early: at the age of four he already knew the notes, and at nine he entered the Paris Conservatory. Phenomenal hearing, memory, brilliant performing and composing abilities of the boy delighted teachers. Bizet wanted to become a universal musician and even played the organ.

Even then, his talent manifested itself in various areas of musical creativity. While still at the conservatory, he composed a symphony, 3 operettas, several cantatas and overtures, as well as piano pieces (including a cycle of 12 pieces in 4 hands "Children's Games"). Soon Bizet brilliantly graduated from the Paris Conservatory, where he was taught by the famous composers Ch. Gounod and F. Halévy.

The young musician repeatedly received prizes at competitions at the conservatory, and at the end of the course in 1857 he became the laureate of the competition in Rome and was awarded the right to spend 3 years in Italy to improve his music. For him, it was a time of intense creative pursuits. Bizet tried himself in various musical genres: he wrote a symphonic suite, a cantata, an operetta, piano pieces, romances.

But, as it turned out, musical theater became his true vocation. True, the path to creating their own original works was not easy. Upon his return from Italy, Bizet composes the opera The Pearl Seekers (1863) based on an exotic story about the love drama of Leila and Nadir, and then The Beauty of Perth (1867) based on the novel by Walter Scott. Both works were received coolly, but the composer did not leave his search. “I am going through a crisis,” he said in those years.

New impressions caused by the events of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) and the Paris Commune led to the creation of the lyric opera "Jamile" (1872) based on the plot from the poem "Namuna" by A. de Musset. This opera marked the beginning of the composer's creative maturity.

Following the then fashionable passion for oriental exoticism, Bizet conveyed in his works the deep psychological experiences of the characters and showed himself to be a master of romantic opera. At the same time, he composed music for the drama by A. Daudet "The Arlesian". Rich in colorful folk paintings, truthful and vivid images of heroes, it paved the way for the opera Carmen, which was Bizet's greatest creative achievement and at the same time became his swan song.

Bizet began work on Carmen in 1873. Its plot was borrowed from a short story by the French writer Prosper Merimee, and the libretto was written by experienced writers A. Melyak and L. Halevi. Bizet boldly departed from the original and created a completely new work. "Carmen" is interesting not only for its realistic plot and romantic intrigue, but also for its bright, deep, dramatic music. The composer made the images of Merimee's heroes deeper and more original, gave each of them a musical characteristic honed in form. That is why "Carmen" and now does not leave the world opera stage. According to P. I. Tchaikovsky, Carmen is destined to become the most popular opera in the world.”

Its premiere took place in March 1875. But, despite the fact that wonderful singers sang in the performance, the production failed. Bright, expressive music was too unusual for the Parisian public. Bizet was shocked by what happened, because he had no doubt of success. A sudden illness broke him, and just three months after the premiere of Carmen, on June 3, 1875, he died in the suburbs of Paris, Bougival.

In the family of a singing teacher. He was registered under the name Alexandre-Cesar-Leopold Bizet, but at baptism received the name Georges, by which he was known in the future. Bizet entered the Paris Conservatoire two weeks before he turned ten.

In 1857, he shared with Charles Lecoq the prize in a competition organized by Jacques Offenbach for the operetta The Miraculous Doctor and received the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to live in Rome for three years, composing music and pursuing his education. The work of account (writing which was mandatory for all laureates of the Rome Prize) was the opera Don Procopio. With the exception of a period spent in Rome, Bizet lived his entire life in Paris.

After a stay in Rome, he returned to Paris, where he devoted himself to writing music. In 1863 he wrote the opera The Pearl Seekers. During the same period, he wrote The Belle of Perth, the music for Alphonse Daudet's The Arlesian and the pianoforte Child's Play. He also wrote the romantic opera Jamila, generally regarded as the forerunner of Carmen. Bizet himself forgot about it, and the symphony was not remembered until 1935, when it was discovered in the library of the conservatory. At its first presentation, this work received praise from the early Romantic period. The symphony is notable for its stylistic resemblance to the music of Franz Schubert, which was hardly known in Paris during this period, except perhaps for a few songs. In 1874-1875 the composer worked on Carmen. The premiere of the opera took place at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on March 3, 1875 and ended in failure. Bizet did not complete his Second Symphony, Rome.

Compositions (full list)

operas

• "Anastasi and Dmitry"
• Don Procopio (opera-buffa, in Italian, 1858-1859, staged 1906, Monte Carlo), also exists, orchestrated by Leonid Feigin
• “Love the Artist” (fr. L’Amour peintre, libretto by Bizet, after J. B. Molière, 1860, unfinished, unpublished)
• "Guzla Emir" (comic opera, 1861-1862)
• "The Pearl Seekers" (fr. Les Pecheurs de perles, 1862-63, staged 1863, Lyric Theatre, Paris)
• "Ivan the Terrible" (fr. Ivan le Terrible, 1865, staged, 1946, Muhringen Castle, Württemberg)
• "Nicola Flamel" (1866?, fragments)
• The Beauty of Perth (fr. La Jolie fille du Perth, 1866, staged 1867, Lyric Theatre, Paris)
• "The Cup of the King of Ful" (French La Coupe du roi de Thule, 1868, fragments)
• "Clarissa Harlow" (comic opera, 1870-1871, excerpts)
• Qalandal (comic opera, 1870), Griselda (comic opera, 1870-71, unfinished)
• "Jamile" (comic opera, 1871, staged 1872, theater "Opera Comic", Paris)
• Don Rodrigo (1873, unfinished)
• Carmen (dramatic opera, 1873-1874, staged 1875, Opéra Comique, Paris; recitatives written by E. Guiraud, after Bizet's death, for a production in Vienna, 1875)

Operettas

• Anastasia and Dmitry
• Malbrook was going on a campaign (Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre, 1867, the Athenaeum Theater, Paris; Bizet owns the 1st act, the other 3 acts are by I. E. Legui, E. Jonas, L. Delibes)
• Sol-si-re-peep-pan (1872, theater "Chateau-d'o", Pa
• Angel and Tobias (L'Ange et Tobia, circa 1855-1857)
• Heloise de Montfort (1855-1857)
• The Enchanted Knight (Le Chevalier enchant?, 1855-57)
• Erminia (1855-1857)
• The Return of Virginia (Le Retour de Virginie, circa 1855-1857)
• David (1856)
• Clovis and Clotilde (1857)
• Doctor Miracle (1857)
• Song of the Century (Carmen seculaire, after Horace, 1860)
• The Marriage of Prometheus (Les Noces de Promethee, 1867)

Bizet, Georges (1838-1875), French composer. Alexander Cesar Leopold Bizet (at baptism received the name Georges) was born in Paris on October 25, 1838 in a musical family: his father and maternal uncle taught singing. At the age of nine he entered the Paris Conservatoire. He brilliantly studied piano with A.F. Marmontel and composition with P. Zimmerman, J.F.F. Halevi and C. Gounod; was awarded many awards. In 1857 he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome; by that time he had completed a symphony in C major, and Bizet's one-act operetta Le Docteur Miracle won first prize at a competition founded by J. Offenbach.

Bizet spent about three years in Rome, where the beauty of nature and the fine arts influenced him more than Italian music. In the comic opera Don Procopio, written during this period, he imitates Donizetti in many ways; however, of his contemporary composers, Gounod had the greatest influence on him for a long time, and of his predecessors, Mozart and Rossini. An extremely gifted pianist, Bizet earned the recognition of Liszt himself, who listened to him play in May 1861 - a few months after Bizet returned from Rome to Paris.

As usual, Bizet immediately started composing an opera if he liked the libretto, but soon cooled off and left the work unfinished (one of his biographers counted about 20 such fruitless attempts). The composer's first completed and staged opera was The Pearl Seekers (Les Pecheurs de perles, 1863); despite the obvious influence of Gounod and J. Meyerbeer, the charm of lyricism and exotic oriental flavor ensured her a place of honor in the French operatic repertoire. Possessing an outstanding talent, Bizet barely made ends meet and was forced to earn extra money in music publishing houses. Day labor took up a lot of his time, undermined his health and distracted him from serious creativity. The next completed opera, The Beauty of Perth (La jolie fille de Perth), was written in 1866 and staged at the end of 1867. The weak libretto and the composer’s forced concessions to the prima donna undoubtedly affected the quality of the score, but still it contains a lot of wonderful material that Bizet later used in other compositions.

Bizet's versatile talent allowed him to start creating a grand opera, but the first compositions in which his creative abilities were revealed (not counting the early symphony) were pieces for the piano duet Children's games (Jeux d "enfants, 1871), a one-act opera by Jamile (Djamileh, 1872) and music for the drama by A. Dode Arlesian (L "Arlsienne, 1872). Bizet's marriage in 1869 to Geneviève Halévy, the daughter of his old teacher, streamlined his life and brought balance to feelings; in the trials that fell to his lot during the Franco-Prussian war (Bizet served in the National Guard) and in the days of the Paris Commune, his personality gained true depth.

In the Children's Games cycle, Bizet showed himself as a master of witty and lyrical miniatures; at Jamil he continued to refine his original orchestral writing, a gift for recreating local color and depicting poetic characters already evident in The Pearl Fishers. The music for the Arlesienne testifies to the further creative growth of the composer: in several dances, intermezzos and melodramas, he managed to convey not only the atmosphere of Provence, but also the lyric-tragic element of Dode's drama.

The excellent libretto chosen by Bizet for the next opera corresponded for the first time to the uniqueness of his talent: it was a staging of the novel by Prosper Merimee Carmen (Carmen), made by A. Melyac and L. Halevi. Bizet began work in 1872, but the premiere at the Paris Comic Opera took place only on March 3, 1875. An impressive success at the Vienna Opera (October 1875) made it possible to present the true value of the work. Bizet died June 3, 1875.

my opinion
orchestra-man