In 2025, there is a dual occasion to celebrate Georges Bizet: the 150th anniversary of Carmen‘s premiere and the death of its composer. The festival Bizet, ‘l’oiseau rebelle’ has been conceived in the image of the composer, who navigated between opera, mélodie, and piano pieces (his instrument). The author of the most performed French opera in the world, Georges Bizet (1838-1875), who died at the age of 36, never had the chance to savor his success. Legend suggests that the lukewarm reception Carmen initially received was fatal to him. While perhaps 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 fully appreciated from the 1980s onwards. A brilliant student at the Paris Conservatory, winner of the Prix de Rome, and active member of the Société Nationale de Musique, Bizet belonged to the generation born during the flourishing of Romanticism, tasked with finding ways to renew it. Yet the public of his time was not ready to follow him. During the spring festival in Venice, featuring seven concerts and a conference, today’s audience will have the chance to experience a portrait of Bizet that goes beyond the masterpiece that sealed his success.
