Bizet

Bizet, GEORGES, a French composer, was born 25th October 1838 at Paris, and studied at the Conservatoire under Halévy, and in Italy. His earlier operas, Les Pêcheurs de Perles (1863), La Jolie Fille de Perth (1867), showed Wagnerian sympathies and had little success; but his music to Daudet's L'Arlésienne was popular, and his comic opera Carmen (1875) was not more remarkable for its originality and dramatic effectiveness than for its success. He had just begun to taste the sweets of popularity when on 3d June 1875 he died. See Lives by Pigot (1889) and Bellaigue (1891).