Seven concerts and a conference tell the story of a composer who profoundly changed the history of music.
The year 2025 seems to be the perfect chance to celebrate Georges Bizet, if we ever needed a reason at all: it is the 150th anniversary of the Carmen premiere and of Bizet’s death, aged 36. Palazzetto Bru Zane, in Venice, dedicates a whole programme to the French composer, who never knew how popular his Carmen would be. In fact, the opera was met tepidly when it premiered, and some say Bizet’s frail health couldn’t take the hit. He was just ahead of his times. Between the 1850s and 1860s, he composed an opera that could only be enthusiastically received in the 1880s. Bizet came of age at the height of Romanticism and his mission was to renovate it, but only a few could follow him right away. The upcoming festival at Palazzetto Bru Zane lists seven concerts and a conference. The programme will paint a picture of Bizet that goes beyond the Carmen, including his mélodie and piano production. Georges Bizet’s parents were amateur musicians who enrolled their ten-year-old child at the Paris Conservatory.
He would soon earn the first prize in the classes of Marmontel (piano), Benoist (organ), and Halévy (composition). He also took private classes with Zimmermann, who in turn introduced him to Gounod. Gounod’s influence was decisive and is obvious in Bizet’s masterful Symphony in C major of 1855. Extraordinarily precocious, Bizet found success early on. His Carmen was the peak of his career, and it couldn’t be otherwise due to his untimely death a mere three months after the premiere. There’s no way, though, to see the opera as his testament. Every page in the Carmen is full of life, almost excessively so, feeding Don José’s insane passion to the point of making him kill. Bizet draw from the opéra-comique toolbox to write a drama. He exasperated exotic sounds, staged a character’s death for the first time at Salla Favart, and exalted a protagonist of questionable morality. The Carmen was nothing short of provocation for the respectable French bourgeoisie. The highlight of the concert programme at Palazzetto Bru Zane will be a representation of Le Docteur Miracle, where a young Georges Bizet displayed his immense potential. The opéra-comique piece, on a libretto by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, will be integrated by a performance by actor Vincenzo Tosetto.
