In 2025, there is a double occasion to celebrate Georges Bizet: the 150th anniversary of the premiere of Carmen and the death of its author. The festival Bizet, Rebel Love was conceived in the image of the composer, who divided his time between opera, mélodie and piano pieces (his instrument).
The author of the most performed French opera in the world today, Georges Bizet (1838-1875), who died at the age of 36, was never able to savour his success. The legend about him insinuates that the mediocre reception Carmen received was fatal to him. However exaggerated, this idea reveals the avant-garde artist’s position in relation to his time: between the 1850s and 1870s, Bizet composed an opera that could only be truly appreciated from the 1980s onwards. A brilliant student at the Paris Conservatoire, winner of the Prix de Rome and an active member of the Société nationale de musique, Bizet belonged to the generation born at the time of the flowering of Romanticism, whose mission was to find ways to renew it. But the public of the time was not yet ready to follow him. During the spring festival in Venice, comprising seven concerts and a conference, today’s audiences will be able to access a portrait of Bizet that goes beyond the masterpiece that consecrated his success.
