Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet (1838–1875) was a French composer of the Romantic era, celebrated above all for his opera Carmen (1875), one of the most performed operas in the world and the source of countless ballet adaptations. Born in Paris, he studied at the Conservatoire from the age of nine, winning the Prix de Rome in 1857 and spending three formative years in Italy.

Bizet's output was relatively small but of remarkable quality. His Symphony in C major, written at seventeen and unperformed until 1935, is now a concert staple. His opera Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) introduced the celebrated tenor–baritone duet 'Au fond du temple saint'. But it was Carmen — based on Prosper Mérimée's novella and premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875 — that secured his immortality. Its story of passion, jealousy and murder, and its incorporation of Spanish musical idiom and habanera rhythms, scandalised some critics at its premiere. Bizet died three months later, aged 36, never knowing that Carmen would become one of the defining works of the operatic canon.

For ballet, Bizet's Carmen score has inspired works by Roland Petit (1949), Alberto Alonso (1967), Mats Ek (1992) and Johan Inger (2015), among many others. Matthew Bourne's The Car Man (2000) uses Rodion Shchedrin's orchestral arrangement of Carmen's themes.