Carmen

In French with English Captions

Articles & Interviews

• About the Composer

  The life of the young Georges Bizet was filled with music. Both his parents were musicians, and just before he turned ten he entered the Paris Conservatory. He studied with Gounod and the other important French opera composers, won all sorts of prizes in school, and made some money on the side arranging scores and playing piano at opera rehearsals. One of his first, frothiest, and most operetta-like compositions, Docteur Miracle, won a competition at the Bouffes-Parisiens theater in 1856. It proceeded to win the Prix de Rome as well, and Bizet followed his luck to Italy for three years, where he soaked up the Mediterranean sun and Mediterranean musical culture...