New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1916-09-27
BIZET AND VERDI.

When Charles A. Ellis, last spring.
decided to answer in the affirmative the
many requests that had come to him to
give a limited season of grand opera in
the West during the fall of 1916, it did
not take him long to decide that for
such season it would be best to limit
himself to two operas and have these
operas the most popular in operatic
literature. His choice Immediately fell
on Carmen" of the Frenchman, Bizet,
and I'll Trovatore" of the Italian, Verdi.
Bizet and Verdi are the two great repre-
sentative names in the operate history
OF France and Italy of the 18th century.
Each OF these men was unquestionably
genius and, together, they have given
more real delight to the music lovers
throughout the world than any COM
posers in history.
In character, workmanship and ira
dition these two men were radically
different from each other. Bizet was
typically French. Verdi was as typically
Italian. Yet there is curious similarity
in their development. Bizet worked
along the well-surveyed path of operatic
tradition in France as governed by the
Grand Opera and Opera Comique, while
Verdi began in the traditional ''Neapoli-
tan style" in which the singer is supreme,
and the orchestra is, in a sense, big.
guitar. Influenced in part by the
example of Richard Wagner, but chiefly
due to his own spiritual and artistic
development, Verdi, in the course of his
long career, arose from the banalities
that filled his very early works to the
consummate art work of music-drama
as found in his "Falstaff''. The pro-
erosion was steady, if slow. What
Bizet would have become had longer
life been granted him, for he was not yet
forty when he died, is not difficult to
guess, for in his Carmen" despite his
surrender to certain traditions demanded
by the French operate stage, it is al
ready a perfect music-drama in the
matter of wedding action to music.
Had this astonishing genius lived longer,
unquestionably he would have gone as
far at least as Verdi did and given the
world the perfection of music-drama of
which Wagner dreamed but never sue
ceeded in accomplishing to the extent
that Verdi did in "Falstaff''.
Although Verdi, as a young man, had
his troubles, although he knew poverty,
although he secured his musical training
under great difficulties, the disadvantages
under which he labored were only suf-
ficient to develop the real character of
the man, and almost from the beginning
he was recognized as great and sue
cessful composer. Bizet, on the other
hand, had not to struggle with poverty,
had not to fight for education. The
great Conservatoire of Paris received him
as little boy and kept him until it sent
him to Rome to finish his education. On
the other hand, this wonderful French
genius never in his life won the favor of
the public. His works were coldly re-
ceived and it was only after his death
that the world awakened to the fact that
he had given it an immortal gift.
In choosing Carmen and I'll Travo-
tore" to be sung by his Opera Company,
Mr.. Ellis has taken not only the two
most typical works of the French and
Italian schools but, when all is said and
done, the two greatest works. I'll
Trovatore" has it's faults and great
ones, but they are faults chiefly of the
exuberant genius of the composer. Few
works are more dramatic and, in the
dramatic moments, Verdi rises in his
music to the greatest heights. In
Azucena he has created, dramatically,
and musically, a character which in
emotional value stands quite alone.
Carmen is not faultless, for Bizet
was compelled in order to get hearing
for his work, to follow certain hide
bound traditions of the French. None
The less, it is the finest flower of the
French lyric stage and today must stand
technically side by side with that
marvellous gift of Verdi's old age,
sFalstaff,' as the most perfect example