With his opera Carmen, French composer Georges Bizet (1838-1875) revitalized the French lyric stage by challenging both the oversized species of grand opera and the tired repertory of the opéra comique.

Georges Bizet was born in Paris. He showed precocious ability in music and at the age of 10 was admitted to the conservatory. There he worked under Jacques Halévy and Charles Gounod in composition and studied piano, organ, and theory. His progress was so outstanding that he won several prizes, culminating in 1857 with the Prix de Rome for composition, which enabled him to live in Italy for 3 years.

Bizet had already composed a number of piano pieces, choruses, and orchestral works. By far the best is the Symphony in C Major, written in a month's time in 1855 but not performed until 1935. Bizet regarded it as too imitative in style, and it does have touches...