Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 1

Carmen Suite No. 1

George Bizet (1838-1875)

While George Bizet composed a number of operas (including one which is occasionally heard, The Pearl Fishers), as well as vocal, choral and instrumental music, he is known most of all for a single, supremely vivid masterwork, the opera Carmen, as well as the incidental music to L’Arlesienne, some of which will be heard in today’s concert as well. Carmen, introduced only a few months before the composer’s early death, was not quite the overwhelming success it would soon become---indeed, Bizet died filled with doubts about his beloved opera. Soon, however, it became perhaps the single most popular opera ever composed, one dearly loved by Johannes Brahms, of all people---and one which antagonists of Richard Wagner would claim to be the model of what a true musical drama ought to be!

The four movements comprising the suite are taken from the introductory music to each of the opera’s four acts: a lively Prelude (in effect the “overture” to Carmen), the prelude to Act II, subtitled “Dragons d’Alcala,” an Intermezzo (prelude to Act III), and to conclude the tempestuous prelude to the final act, known as the Aragonaise. In Carmen Bizet, who never set foot in Spain, miraculously created a sweeping panorama of Spanish musical styles which the Spaniards themselves hail as true to the spirit of their culture.

GPYO concert