had been designed by Hannibal Lippi for Cardinal Ricci, passing thence
into the hands of Alexandro de' Medici, and later into those of Leo
XI., it had been the home of art; and then, on its acquisition by the
French Academy in 1804, it became the home of artists. Here had lived
and worked and dreamed David, Ingres, Delaroche, Vernet, Hérold,
Benoist, Halévy, Berlioz, Thomas, Gounod, and the minor host of them.
In truth the list awed Bizet not a little, and had he needed an
incentive here it was. For the rest, he was supremely content. As a
_pensionnaire_ of the Academy he had two hundred francs a month, and
he apportioned them in this wise: _Nourriture_, 75fr.; _vin_, 25fr.;
_retenue_, 25fr.; _location de piano_, 15fr.; _blanchissage_, 5fr.;
_bois_, _chandelles_, _timbre-poste_, _&c._, 10fr.; _gants_, 5fr.;
_perte sur le change de la monnaie,_ 5fr. Even then he wrote: "I have
more than thirty francs _pour faire le grand garçon_." In another
letter he says: "I seem to cling to Rome more than ever. The longer I
know it, the more I love it. Everything is so beautiful. Each
street--even the filthiest of them--has its own charm for me. And
perhaps what is most astonishing of all, is that those very things
which startled me most on my arrival, have now become a part of and
necessary to my very existence--the madonnas with their little lamps
at every corner; the linen hanging out to dry from the windows; the
very refuse of the streets; the beggars--all these things really
divert me, and I should cry out if so much as a dung-heap were
removed.... More too, every day, do I pity those imbeciles who have
not been more fully able to appreciate their good fortune in being
_pensionnaires_ of the Academy. But then one cannot help observing
that they are the very ones who have achieved nothing. Halévy, Thomas,
Gounod, Berlioz, Massé--they all loved and adored their Rome."
Then on the last day of the same year: "I seem to incline more
definitely towards the theatre, for I feel a certain sense of drama,
which, if I possessed it, I knew not of till now. So I hope for the
best. But that is not all. Hitherto I have vacillated between Mozart
and Beethoven, between Rossini and Meyerbeer, and suddenly I know upon
what, upon whom to fix my faith. To me there are two distinct kinds of
genius: the inspirational and the purely rational, I mean the genius
of nature and the genius of erudition; and whilst I have an immense
admiration for the second, I cannot deny that the first has all my
sympathies. So, _mon cher_, I have the courage to prefer, and to say I
prefer, Raphael to Michael Angelo, Mozart to Beethoven, Rossini to
Meyerbeer, which is, I suppose, much the same as saying that if I had
heard Rubini I would have preferred him to Duprez. Do not think for a
moment that I place one above the other--that would be absurd. All I
maintain is that the matter is one of taste, and that the one
exercises upon my nature a stronger influence than does the other.
When I hear the 'Symphonie Héroïque,' or the fourth act of the
'Huguenots,' I am spell-bound, aghast as it were; I have not eyes,
ears, intelligence, enough even to admire. But when I see 'L'École
D'Athènes,' or 'La Vierge de Foligno,' when I hear 'Les Noces de
Figaro,' or the second act of 'Guillaume Tell,' I am completely happy;
I experience a sense of comfort, a complete satisfaction: in effect, I
forget everything."
This, then, is what Rome did for Bizet; but, be it said, for Bizet
_très jeune encore_. For a time the result is patent in his work, but
afterwards there comes, although no revulsion, a distinct variation of
feeling, which has in it something of compromise. The genius innate in
him was inspirational before it was--if it ever was--erudite. Even in
his later days there was for him no cowering before his culture. In
1867 he wrote in the _Revue Nationale_--the only critique, by the way,
he ever wrote--under the pseudonym of Gaston de Betzi: "The artist has
no name, no nationality. He is inspired or he is not. He has genius or
he has not. If he has, we welcome him; if he has not, we can at most
respect him, if we do not pity and forget him."
He was the same in all things: "I have no comrades," he said, "only
friends." And there is one sentence that he wrote from Rome that might
well be held up to the _gamins_ of the French Conservatoire. "Je ne
veux rien faire _de chic_; je veux avoir des _idées_ avant de
commencer un morceau."
In August of his second year Bizet left Rome on a visit to Naples. He
carried a letter to Mercadente. On his return good news and bad
awaited him. Ernest Guiraud, his good friend and quondam
fellow-student in the class of Marmontel, has just been proclaimed
Prix de Rome. And this at the very moment Bizet was to leave the
Villa; for the Academy would have it that their musical
_pensionnaires_ should pass the third year in Germany. The prospect
was entirely repugnant to Bizet. So he went to work against it,
directing his energies in the first place against Schnetz, "the dear
old director" as they called him. Schnetz, owning to a soft spot for
his young _pensionnaire_, was overcome, and through him I fancy the
powers that were in Paris. However, Bizet was permitted to remain in
his beloved Rome. Delighted, he wrote off to Marmontel: "I am daily
expecting Guiraud, and words cannot express how glad I shall be to see
him. Would you believe it, it is two years since I have spoken with an
intelligent musician? My colleague Z---- bores me frightfully. He
speaks to me of Donizetti, of Fesca even, and I reply to him with
Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Gounod."
This last year spent with Guiraud was perhaps the happiest of his
life. At the close of it the two set off together on a ramble through
the land, with fancy for their only guide. They had got so far as
Venice when news of his mother's dangerous illness called Bizet to her
side. He arrived in time to say farewell, and he never returned to
Italy.
Of work done at the Villa, "Vasco de Gama" is the only tangible
sample; "but I have not wasted my time," he wrote, "I have read a good
many volumes of history, and ever so much more literature of all
kinds. I have travelled, I have learned something of the history of
art, and I really am a bit of a connoisseur in painting and sculpture.
All I want now, on my return, are _trois jolis actes_ for the Théâtre
Lyrique."
And shortly we find him in full swing with "Les Pêcheurs des Perles."
It was produced on the 30th September of 1863, and had some eighteen
representations. "La Jolie Fille de Perth," which followed it four
years later, had, I think, twenty-one. In between these two works, we
are told, Bizet, in a fit of violent admiration for Verdi, strove to
emulate him in an opera entitled "Ivan le Terrible." It is said to
have been completed and handed to the management of the Théâtre
Lyrique. Then Bizet, recognising as suddenly that he had made a
mistake, withdrew the score and burned it.
M. Charles Pigot, who is chiefly responsible for this story, goes on
to say that the libretto was the work of MM. Louis Gallet and Edouard
Blau. But in that he is not correct, for Gallet himself tells us that
he knew Bizet only ever so slightly at the time, and that neither to
him nor to Blau is due a single line of this "Ivan."
Then there were "Griselidis," of which, in a letter dated February of
1871, Bizet speaks as _très avancée_; "Clarisse Harlowe"; and the
"Calendal" of M. Sardou, to each of which he referred in the same year
as _à peine commencée_. There was also an opera in one act written by
M. Carvalho, and actually put into rehearsal at the Opéra Comique. But
none of these saw the light, and I have little doubt they all met
their fate on a certain eventful day, shortly before he died, when
Bizet remorselessly destroyed a whole pile of manuscript. And in truth
these early works had little value of themselves. They were but so
many rungs of the ladder by which he climbed to the heights of
"Djamileh," of "L'Arlésienne," and of "Carmen." No musician ever took
longer to know himself than did Georges Bizet. His period of
hesitation, of vacillation, was unduly protracted. For why, it is hard
to tell; but one cannot help feeling that the terrible _lutte pour la
vie_ had a deal to do with it. Those early years in Paris were very
hard ones. "Believe me," he wrote from le Vésinet (always a favourite
spot with him), "believe me, it is exasperating to have one's work
interrupted for days to write _solos de piston_. But what would you? I
must live. I have just rushed off at a gallop half-a-dozen melodies
for Heugel. I trust you may like them. At least I have carefully
chosen the verses. ... My opera and my symphony are both of them _en
train_. But when, oh when, shall I finish them? Yet I do nothing but
work, and I come only once a week to Paris. Here I am well out of the
way of all _flaneurs_, _raseurs_, _diseurs de riens_, _du monde
enfin_, _hélas_." Then a few days later: "I am completely prostrate
with fatigue. I can do nothing. I have even been obliged to give up
orchestrating my symphony; and now I feel it will be too late for this
winter. I am going to lie down, for I have not slept for three nights,
and all seems so dark to me. To-morrow, too, I have _la musique gaie_
to write."
Just then time was pressing him hard. He was under contract to produce
"La Jolie Fille de Perth" by the end of the year, and he was already
well into October. It became a matter of fifteen and sixteen hours
work a day; for there were lessons to be given, proofs to be
corrected, piano transcriptions to be made, and the rest. And, truth
to tell, he was terribly lacking in method. He was choke-full of
ideas, he was indeed borne along by a very torrent of them; and if
only he could have stopped to collect himself it would have been well
for him. But no; before he realised it, "La Jolie Fille" was finished
and in rehearsal. Then for the time he was able to put enough distance
between himself and his work to value it. And it seems to have pleased
him. "The final rehearsal," he writes to Galabert (by this time his
confidant in most things), "has produced a great effect. The piece is
really highly interesting, the interpretation is excellent, and the
costumes are splendid. The scenery is new and the orchestra and the
artists are full of enthusiasm. But more than all this, _cher ami_,
the score of 'La Jolie Fille' is _une bonne chose_. The orchestra
lends to all a colour and relief for which, I confess, I never dared
to hope. I think I have arrived this time. Now, _il faut monter,
monter, monter, toujours_."
Shortly after this he married Geneviève Halévy, the daughter of the
composer of "La Juive," and lived almost exclusively at le Vésinet.
There, at 8, Rue des Cultures, a rustic place enough, one might find
Georges Bizet, seated in his favourite corner of the lovely garden,
_en chapeau de canotier_, smoking his pipe and chatting to his
friends. It had been the home of Jacques Halévy, and Bizet had been
wont to do his courting there. Now the old man was no more, and in the
long summer days, the daughter and the son--for Halévy had been as a
father to Bizet--missed sorely the familiar figure hard at work with
rake or hoe at his beloved flower-beds. They were the passion of his
later days, and they well repaid his care. Even in the middle of a
lesson--and he taught up to well-nigh the last weeks of his
life--would he rush out to uproot a noxious weed that might chance to
catch his eye. "How well I remember my first day there," says Louis
Gallet. "The war was not long finished, and the traces of it were with
us yet. True, Paris had resumed her lovely girdle of green; but
beneath this verdure reflected in the tardy waters of the Seine, there
was enough still to tell the terrible tale of ruin. One could not go
to Pecq or le Vésinet without some difficulty. Bizet, to save me
trouble, had taken care to meet me at Rueil, whence we made for the
little place where he was staying for the summer. The day was lovely,
and 'Djamileh' made great strides as we talked and paced the pretty
garden walks. This habit of discussing while walking, what was
uppermost in his mind, was always, to me, a powerful characteristic of
Georges Bizet. I do not remember any important discussion between us
that did not take place during a stroll, or at all events whilst
walking, if only to and from his study. We talked long that
afternoon--of the influence of Wagner on the future of musical art, of
the reception in store for 'Djamileh,' both by the public and by the
Opéra Comique itself. This latter, indeed, was no light matter. The
Direction was then undertaken by two parties: that of Du Locle,
tending towards advancement in every form; that of De Leuven, clinging
with all the force of tradition to the past.
"Then in the evening nothing would do but Bizet should see me well on
my way to Paris. The bridges were not yet restored. So we set off on
foot, in company with Madame Bizet, to find the ferry-boat. How
delicious was that walk by the little islets in the cool of the
twilight; along the towing-path so narrow and overrun with growth that
we were obliged to proceed in Indian file. And how merry we were,
until perchance we stumbled on the fragment of a shell lying hidden in
the grass, or came face to face with some majestic tree, still
smarting from its wounds, when there would rise before us in all its
vividness the terrible scene so recently enacted on that spot. Then we
talked of the war and all its sorrows; and we tried to descry there on
the right, in the shade of Mount Valerien, the spot where Henri
Regnault fell.
"At length we found the ferry, and reached the other bank. There at
the end of the path we could see the lights of the station; so we
separated. And although I made many after visits, none remained so
firmly fixed in my memory, or left me so happy an impression as did
this, my first to Bizet's summer home."
During the siege itself, he had been forced to remain in Paris. But it
was much against his will, and he seems to have chafed sorely at it.
Yet it is difficult to picture Bizet bellicose. "Dear friend," he
writes to Guiraud, who was stationed at some outpost, "the description
you give of the palace you are living in makes us all believe that
luck is with you. But every day we think of the cold, the damp, the
ice, the Prussians, and all the other horrors that surround you. As
for me, I continue to reproach myself with my inaction, for in truth
my conscience is anything but at rest; but you know well what keeps me
here. We really cannot be said to eat any longer. Suzanne has just
brought in some horse bones, which I believe are to form our meal.
Geneviève dreams nightly of chickens and lobsters."
Not till the following year, during the days of the Commune, do we
find him at le Vésinet. Then he writes (also to Guiraud): "Here we are
without half our things, without our books, without anything in fact,
and absolutely there are no means of getting into Paris.... So, dear
friend, if you have any news, do, I pray you, let us have it. I read
the Versailles papers, but they tell their wretched readers (and
expect them to believe it) that France is 'très tranquille,' Paris
alone excepted (_sic_). The day before yesterday was anything but
tranquil. For twelve hours there was nothing but a continuous
cannonade.... But _we_ are safe enough, for although the Prussian
patrols continue to increase in number we are not inconvenienced by
them, and they will not, in all probability, occupy le Vésinet. But it
seems quite impossible to say how all this is going to end. I am
absolutely discouraged, and what is more, I fear, dear friend, there
is worse trouble ahead of us. I am off now to the village to look at a
piano; I must work and try to forget it all."
He finished "Djamileh" at le Vésinet. It was produced at the Opéra
Comique in May of 1872. Gallet tells us that he did not write the book
specially for Bizet. Under the title of "Namouna," it had been given
by M. du Locle to Jules Duprato, a musician and a "prix de Rome." But
Duprato _paressait agréablement_, and never got much further with it
than the composition of a certain _air de danse_ to the verses
commencing: "Indolente, grave et lente," which are to be found also in
Bizet's score. Then there came a time when the Opéra Comique, truly
one of the most good-natured of institutions in its own peculiar way,
so far belied its reputation as to tire of this idling on the part of
M. Duprato. So the work passed on to Bizet. He suggested change of
title, and "Namouna" became "Djamileh." But it remained nevertheless
the poem of Musset.
"Je vous dirais qu' Hassan racheta Namouna
* * * * *
Qu'on reconnut trop tard cette tête adorée
Et cette douce nuit qu'elle avait espérée
Que pour prix de ses maux le ciel la lui donna.
Je vous dirais surtout qu' Hassan dans cette affaire
Sentit que tôt ou tard la femme avait son tour
Et que l'amour de soi ne vaut pas l'autre amour."
There you have the whole story. It is but an _état d'âme_--a little
love scene, simple enough in a way, yet so delicate and so full of
colour. It was a matter of "atmosphere," not of structure, a
masterpiece of style rather than of situation; and from its first
rehearsal as an opera it was doomed. In truth, these rehearsals were
amusing. There was old Avocat--they used to call him Victor--the
typical _régisseur_ of tradition; a man who could tell of the
_premières_ of "Pré-aux-Clercs" and "La Dame Blanche," and, what is
more, expected to be asked to tell of them. From his corner in the
wings he listened to the music of this "Djamileh," his face expressive
of a pity far too keen for words. But it was a matter of minutes only
before his pity turned to rage, and eventually he stumped off to his
sanctum, banging his door behind him with a vehemence that augured
badly for poor Bizet. As for De Leuven, his co-director: had he not
written. "Postillon de Lonjumeau"? and was it not the most successful
work of Boiledieu's successor? The fact had altered his whole life.
Ever after, all he sought in opera was some similarity with Le
Postillon. And there was nothing of Adam in this music, still less
anything of De Leuven in the poem. That was sufficient for him.
"Allons," said he one day to Gallet, who arrived at rehearsal just as
Djamileh was about to sing her _lamento_: "allons, vous arrivez pour
le De Profundis."
As for the public, they understood it not at all, this charming
miniature. "C'est indigne," cried one; "c'est odieux," from another;
"c'est très drôle," said a third. "Quelle cacophonie, quelle audace,
c'est se moquer du monde. Voilà, où mène le culte de Wagner à la
folie. Ni tonalité, ni mesure, ni rythme; ce n'est plus de la
musique," and the rest. The press itself was no better, no whit more
rational. Yet this "Djamileh" was rich in premonition of those very
qualities that go to make "Carmen" the immortal work it is. It so
glows with true Oriental colour, is so saturate with the true Eastern
spirit, as to make us wonder for the moment--as did Mr. Henry James
about Théophile Gautier--whether the natural attitude of the man was
not to recline in the perfumed dusk of a Turkish divan, puffing a
chibouque. Here the tints are stronger, mellower, and more carefully
laid on than in "Les Pêcheurs des Perles." There is, too, all the
_bizarrerie_, as well as all the sensuousness of the East. Yet there
is no obliteration of the human element for sake of the picturesque.
Wagnerism was the cry raised against it on all sides; yet, if it be
anything but Bizet, it is surely Schumann. It was, in effect, all too
good for the public--too fine for their vulgar gaze, their
indiscriminating comment. And Reyer, farseeing amongst his fellows,
spoke truth when he said in the _Débats_: "I feel sure that if M.
Bizet knows that his work has been appreciated by a small number of
musicians--being _cognoscenti_--he will be more proud of that fact
than he would be of a popular success. 'Djamileh,' whatever be its
fortunes, heralds a new epoch in the career of this young master."
Then came "L'Arlésienne," as all the world knows, a dismal failure
enough. It was to Bizet a true labour of love. From the day that
Carvalho came to him proposing that he should add _des mélodrames_ to
this tale of fair Provence, to the day of its production some four
months later, he was absorbed in it. The score as it now stands
represents about half the music that he wrote. The prelude to the
third act of "Carmen," and the chorus, "Quant aux douaniers," both
belonged originally to "L'Arlésienne," The rest was blue pencilled at
rehearsal. And of all the care he lavished on it, perhaps the finest,
certainly the fondest, was given to his orchestra. Every instrument is
ministered to with loving care. Luckily for him, fortunately too for
us, he knew not then what sort of lot awaited this scrupulous score of
his. He knew he wrote for Carvalho--for the Vaudeville; but that was
all. And they gave him twenty-five musicians--a couple of flutes and
an oboe (this latter to do duty too for the cor-anglais); one
clarinet, a couple of bassoons, a saxophone, two horns, a kettle-drum,
seven violins, one solitary alto, five celli, two bass, and his choice
of one other. The poor fellow chose a piano; but they never saw the
irony of it. All credit to his little band, they did their best. But
the most that they could do was to cull the tunes from out his score.
The consolation that we have is, that, so far as the piece as a piece
is concerned, no orchestra in the world could have saved it. It was
doomed to failure for all sorts of reasons. Daudet himself goes very
near the mark when he says that "it was unreasonable to suppose that
in the middle of the boulevard, in that coquettish corner of the
Chaussée d'Antin, right in the pathway of the fashions, the whims of
the hour, the flashing and changing vortex of all Paris, people could
be interested in this drama of love taking place in the farmyard in
the plain of Camargue, full of the odour of well-plenished granaries
and lavender in flower. It was a splendid failure; clothed in the
prettiest music possible, with costumes of silk and velvet in the
centre of comic opera scenery." Then he goes on to tell us: "I came
away discouraged and sickened, the silly laughter with which the
emotional scenes were greeted still ringing in my ears; and without
attempting to defend myself in the papers, where on all sides the
attack was led against this play, wanting in surprises--this painting
in three acts of manners and events of which I alone could appreciate
the absolute fidelity. I resolved to write no more plays, and heaped
one upon the other all the hostile notices as a rampart around my
determination."
At this time Bizet seems to have come a good deal into contact with
Jean Baptiste Faure. They met frequently at the Opéra. "You really
must do something more for Bizet," said the baritone to Louis Gallet.
"Put your heads together, you and Blau, and write something that shall
be _bien pour moi_." "Lorenzaccio," perhaps the strongest of De
Musset's dramatic efforts, first came up. But Faure was not at all in
touch with it. The rôle of Brutus--fawning Judas that he is--revolted
him. He had no fancy to distort as _menteur à triple étage_; so the
subject was put by. Then came Bizet one morning with an old issue of
_Le Journal pour tous_ in his pocket. "Here is the very thing for us:
'Le Jeunesse du Cid' of Guilhem de Castro; not, mark you, the Cid of
Corneille alone, but the inceptive Cid in all the glory of its
pristine colour--the Cid, Don Rodrigue de Bivar, in the words of
Sainte-Beuve 'the immortal flower of honour and of love.'" _The scène
du mendiant_ held Bizet completely. It was to him simple, touching,
and great. It showed Don Rodrigue in a new light. Those--and there
were many of them--who had already cast their choice upon this legend,
had recognised--but recognised merely--in their hero, the son prepared
to sacrifice his love for filial duty, and to yield his life for love.
But they had not seen in him the Christian, the true and godly soul,
the Good Samaritan that De Castro represents. The scene of Rodrigue
with the leper, disdained and done away with by Corneille, with which
De Castro too was so reproached, was full of attraction for Bizet. His
whole interest centred round it. He was impatient and hungered to get
at it; and "Carmen," on which he was already well at work, was even
laid aside the while. Faure, too, had expressed a sound approval and a
hearty interest, and this alone meant much. So Bizet once again was
full of hope. There follows a long and detailed correspondence on the
subject with Gallet, with which I have not space to deal; but it shows
up splendidly the extreme nicety of the musician's dramatic sense.