GEORGES BIZET's TRAGIC SON Downloaded from by University of Manchester User on 16 August 2019
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GEORGES BIZET'S TRAGIC SON Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ml/article-abstract/XLIX/4/357/1068074 by University of Manchester user on 16 August 2019 BY JOHN W. KLEIN "BIZET'S child is of an ideal charm and beauty", Georg Brandes, the Danish historian, wrote in 1888 to Nietzsche, the most fervent champion of 'Carmen', which he had frequently acclaimed as the greatest of modern operas. The stern Brandes himself was entranced by this lovable child, his pathetic, captivating mother and his ill-fated father, whose genius had been recognized only after his death. To Brandes, though a thoroughgoing sceptic, they formed a kind of mystic, intensely beautiful trinity. Abjectly he apologized to Nietzsche for admiring 'Tristan' as well; but, con- descendingly, the philosopher reassured him on that score. Jacques Bizet (christened after his grandfather, Jacques Fro- mental HaleVy, the composer of'La Juive') was born on 10 July 1872. "Thanks to you", Bizet wrote to Dr. Devillieres, the most noted obstetrician of the day, "my wife has come victoriously through an ordeal we both feared. I shall never forget that night or the part you played in it". Genevieve Bizet had in fact been on the very brink of insanity, and her husband was tortured by a gnawing dread. Besides, 1872 proved an unsuccessful and frustrating year for him. In May his delicate one-act opera 'Djamileh' had failed; to the obtuse critics it seemed to outdo even Wagner in its frantic striving after originality. Then, three months after his son's birth, 'L'Arle'sienne', about which Richard Strauss once said: "Seldom has more been expressed in fewer notes", met with a hostile reception. The pleasure-loving audience, at the Vaudeville Theatre, unaccus- tomed to such sombre fare, resented not merely the grim scene of the hero's suicide but the very presence of serious music. Flinging aside the last remnant of self-control, the composer had shaken his fist at the boorishly unappreciative public, exclaiming several times: "They have not understood me!" For a while his courage and resolution enabled him to continue the struggle; but on 3 March 1875 the disastrous premiere of 'Carmen' struck him with the staggering force of a cruel and almost unpredictable blow. Never did he recover entirely from this stark disillusionment; and his last three months, with their violent outbursts, have a sinister tinge of despair and even of persecution mania. When his father died Jacques was not yet three years old. That sudden death ("the most horrible catastrophe", wrote Ludovic Hal6vy) occurred a mere two days after a reckless swim which the novelist Maurice Sachs, a grandson of Jacques' second wife, bluntly 357 described in his 'La Decade de Pillusion' (published in 1936) as "suicide", though in all probability it was merely a final, despairing attempt to revive a flagging energy. Jacques himself was brought up very erratically by his lovely but neurotic mother, whose frequent tantrums alternated disconcertingly with interludes of a bewitching Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ml/article-abstract/XLIX/4/357/1068074 by University of Manchester user on 16 August 2019 sweetness. To appreciate her charm one glance at her famous portrait in the Louvre is sufficient. It is Elie Delaunay's finest work; here Genevieve gazes pensively at us with her large, dark, melancholy eyes—"like black stars", as Abel Hermant aptly termed them. Her husband's infatuation is easily understandable, no less than that of Proust, Maupassant and countless others. Indeed, none of Bizet's biographers has fully realized her enchantment or the significant part she played in the social life of her time. Her son Jacques inherited both her fascination and her mental instability, no less than his father's insatiable thirst for ever new experiences. Even at school, however, he constituted a problem, for the teachers scarcely dared to punish the son of so eminent and tragic a man. "With a famous name like yours, you'll never be expelled", the school superintendent told him. Even that stern Wagnerite, Adolphe Jullien, incidentally no admirer of the composer of 'Carmen', informs us that in the 1880's "the. whole of France inebriated itself with the very name of Bizet". An exceptionally precocious and high-spirited lad, Jacques from the outset seemed to justify the highest expectations. One rare gift was his: the discern- ment to discover talent, even in its most fumbling beginnings. At school he immediately took charge of an awkward, unhappy lad who was subjected to relentless bullying; luring him out of his self- imposed solitude, he introduced him into society and formed a lifelong friendship with him. This was Marcel Proust, destined to become the most subtle psychological novelist of his century. What drew them together was, above all, a fervent passion for music, according to Proust, "the most compelling of all the arts" and the chief consolation of "my bleak existence". Jacques and his mother wisely rescued him from what might so easily have developed into a total withdrawal from ordinary life. The youthful Bizet's most endearing characteristic was his devotion to his father's memory. Moreover, his physical likeness to him, according to many good judges, was uncanny. He loved his father's works (to which his mother revealed a strange indifference) and attended every performance of 'Carmen' in which a new artist appeared; his favourite singer was Mary Garden, who died in 1967 at the advanced age of 92. Invariably, before he fell asleep, his eyes would linger for a while upon a magnificent painting of Georges Bizet: young, debonair, full of imperturbable confidence in his glorious future. One can almost catch the sound of his voice as he refers to his chief rivals, Verdi and Wagner: "I have nothing to fear from those who are finishing their careers". Poor Bizet: Wagner 358 produced 'Parsifal' seven years after his early death. As for Verdi, that superb sunset lay more than a decade ahead. So much for human hopes and predictions. But his tragic fate stirred his son's vivid imagination, as it did that of Nietzsche and Tchaikovsky. "La gloire, soleil des morts", Balzac Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ml/article-abstract/XLIX/4/357/1068074 by University of Manchester user on 16 August 2019 had sadly meditated. The father Jacques had never really known grew into a legendary figure. He could not forget that the great German philosopher, in an extraordinary panegyric, had placed him above Wagner himself; for, as he exclaimed, "everything divine runs on light feet". In 'Carmen' alone he had found oblivion of sorrow, disease and impending insanity. Even the cynical and caustic Proust, in an amazing outburst, asserted that the perfection of 'L'Arl6sienne' was such that it made authors and composers alike realize the futility of writing. "No work of art inflicts such incurable wounds", was his mysterious comment as he pondered every word and note. A dynamo of energy, Jacques resolved to try his hand at one profession after the other. No man, he was convinced, could foresee, at any rate at the outset of his career, where his innate ability lay. Even his father had vacillated between music and literature. At first it was in fact music that tempted Jacques; then he made up his mind to become a man of science; for two years he studied medicine at the University of Paris. Afterwards, impulsively, he took up journalism; he became co-editor with Proust and Daniel Halevy of one of the strangest literary magazines ever published, Le Banquet; its very title, inspired by Plato's 'Symposium', was intended as a tribute to Mallarme". Discerningly the new magazine dealt with pioneers such as Ibsen and Strindberg but above all Nietzsche, the earliest trans- lations from whose works appeared in Le Banquet in 1892. In the youthful Bizet's attic, half-studio and half-laboratory, the intellectual 61ite of France gathered. Here fulminated Henri Barbusse, subse- quently the author of the most savage indictment of war, 'Le Feu'. Here, too, was the more sophisticated Le"on Blum, future Prime Minister of France. Unfortunately, acrimonious disputes raged among the contributors of the magazine; Proust even believed that an article by Blum "dishonoured Le Banquet". In such cir- cumstances its circulation dwindled. In March 1893 its last number appeared, accompanied by a sanguine promise of future articles. Then, abruptly, it vanished for ever, without even a word of ex- planation. But Jacques, who had been chiefly instrumental in keeping this "review of youth" alive, did not despair; cheerfully he now embarked on a dramatic career. He wrote gay little plays and burlesques scintillating with petulant wit, and inhabiting a rather quaint domain half-way between Marivaux and Oscar Wilde. Though he shied away from serious drama, he often gave the impression of being as downright and single-minded as his father. Henry Malherbe, 359 the director of the Ope"ra-Comique, who knew him well and accom- panied him on many an excursion, once exclaimed: "There, standing in front of me, in all his sturdy independence, was, I imagined, Georges Bizet himself". Yet somewhere a fatal flaw existed. Despite his tireless activity Jacques lacked consistency of Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ml/article-abstract/XLIX/4/357/1068074 by University of Manchester user on 16 August 2019 purpose. Nevertheless, he remained almost morbidly conscious of his great heritage. No doubt his father had triumphed after his death; yet he still needed support, for the very work which in its time had been denounced as revolutionary, "more chaotic than the worst excesses of Wagner", was now in danger of being belittled as a commonplace potboiler.