Favorite Composers in Art - Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet was born in 1838 in Paris, France. He died in the summer of 1875. A French composer and son of a music teacher, he was bright enough and good enough to gain admission to the Paris Conservatoire at age 9. By the time he was 17, he wrote his excellent Symphony in C Major (1855). Determined to be successful on the operatic stage, he prepared The Pearl Fishers (1863), La Jolie Fille de Perth (1866), and Djamileh (1871). But French light opera was too frivolous for him, so he decided to reform the genre of opéra comique. In 1875 he produced his masterpiece, Carmen. Bizet died three months after Carmen reached the stage, ending a remarkable French musical career. He was only 36. The music is his "Prelude," from the "Carmen Suite No. 1."