Bizet by Hugh Macdonald (review)

Go straight to the second paragraph in the preface for the impetus behind this welcome new study of Georges Bizet:

My own inclination to offer a new study of Bizet in English is prompted less by a desire to add anything new to a discussion of Carmen, and more by curiosity about the rest of his œuvre and by a desire to set the composer in the context of French music of the Second Empire in which he displayed, as far as his contemporaries could tell while he was still alive, great talent but not actual genius.

(p. ix)

Nicely put and a worthy cause.

A key exhibition of Bizet bric-à-brac, held near his house at Bougival in 2001 and entitled “De Carmen à Bizet” had a similar aim, summed up by Jean Lacouture who considered Bizet “one of those artists eclipsed by his own masterpiece” (all translations are my own; original in Jean Lacouture, De Carmen à Bizet, Preface to Exhibition Catalog [Villa Viardot, Bougival, Yvelines, France: 28 April–7 June 2001], 7). An opposite view was put forward in one of two recent French biographies of the composer, by Rémy Stricker (Georges Bizet, 1838–1875 [Paris: Gallimard, 1999]), whose preface constantly reminds us of Carmen. Hervé Lacombe puts it more precisely in his biography (Georges Bizet: Naissance d’une identité créatrice [Paris: Fayard, 2000]), suggesting that “the recognition of some important scores by the composer has been made in the wake of the world-wide success of Carmen” (original in Lacombe, p. 7).

Some may find the author’s first paragraph questionable, claiming that “English-speaking readers have been well served for many years by the books on Bizet by Winton Dean and Mina Curtiss” (p. ix). The latter is an impeccably-referenced book that appeared in 1959, followed by a French translation, drawing upon many rich sources in private collections (Bizet and His World [London: Secker & Warburg, 1959]). As for the contention that Dean serves us well, some may beg to differ, since he masks sources, hazards guesses, and shows the opinionated views current among British musicologists of his time. Elsewhere, his celebrated articles on the editing of Carmen in the Bärenreiter edition by Fritz Oeser were right in attacking Oeser’s methods but wrongheaded in what they proposed instead. Dean wrote well for the 1950s reader but may frustrate today’s readership expecting more precision and depth.

Who, by the way, are these “English-speaking readers”? Most of them will surely have more than a smattering of French, whetting their appetites for the original versions of Macdonald’s often idiomatic quotes from Bizet himself. Oxford’s wispy and wasteful way with footnotes, floating at the bottom of each page with line-spaces, could have included French originals in a nice solid Garamond block. Lacking them devalues the book as a springboard for further research and will annoy professional writers called upon for notes that avoid double translation. Only the most erudite will have a Ganderax, not to mention access to the materials quoted (in English only) from carton 64, folio 16 of the Institut de France AFR collection. On the other hand, synopses of texted pieces are peppered with French-only lines that these imaginary monolingualists would not understand; in short, Oxford’s translation policy seems very inconsistent.

Whatever the case, Macdonald’s allegiance is geared to the enlightenment of later twentieth-century approaches to composer-study, principally because he is interested in looking closely at the music itself. In short, he remains a believer in the “Life and Works” approach and totally convinces us that there is still much mileage in it.

In the light of the author’s prodigious familiarity with the operas of Bizet’s contemporaries, enlightening parallels emerge, particularly with the music of Charles Gounod, Félicien David, Hector Berlioz, etc. Former critics (including Dean) are all too ready to stick the Wagnerian label on certain aspects of Bizet...