What is the name of the opera that ultimately brought the Théâtre Lyrique little financial success, though Bizet had won admiration from his peers?
The premiere, originally planned for 14 September 1863, was postponed to the 30th because of the illness of the soprano lead, Léontine de Maësen. The first-night audience at the Théâtre Lyrique received the work well, and called for Bizet at the conclusion. The writer Louis Gallet, who later would provide several librettos for Bizet, described the composer on this occasion as "a little dazed ... a forest of thick curly hair above a round, still rather childish face, enlivened by the quick brown eyes..." The audience's appreciation was not reflected in the majority of the press reviews, which generally castigated both the work and what they considered Bizet's lack of modesty in appearing on stage. Gustave Bertrand in Le Ménestrel wrote that "this sort of exhibition is admissible only for a most extraordinary success, and even then we prefer to have the composer dragged on in spite of himself, or at least pretending to be". Another critic surmised that the calls for the composer had been orchestrated by a "claque" of Bizet's friends, strategically distributed.Of the opera itself, Benjamin Jouvin of Le Figaro wrote: "There were neither fishermen in the libretto nor pearls in the music". He considered that on every page the score displayed "the bias of the school to which [Bizet] belongs, that of Richard Wagner". Bertrand compared the work unfavourably with those of contemporary French composers such as Charles Gounod and Félicien David. "Nevertheless", he wrote, "there is a talent floating in the midst of all these regrettable imitations". Hector Berlioz was a voice apart in the general critical hostility; his review of the work in Journal des Débats praised the music's originality and subtlety: "The score of Les pêcheurs de perles does M. Bizet the greatest honour", he wrote. Among Bizet's contemporaries, the dramatist Ludovic Halévy wrote that this early work announced Bizet as a composer of quality: "I persist in finding in [the score] the rarest virtues". The youthful composer Émile Paladilhe told his father that the opera was superior to anything that the established French opera composers of the day, such as Auber and Thomas, were capable of producing.In its initial run Les pêcheurs de perles ran for 18 performances, alternating with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. It closed on 23 November 1863, and although it brought the theatre little financial success, Bizet had won admiration from his peers. Carvalho was satisfied enough to ask Bizet to quickly finish Ivan IV, with a view to its early production at the Théâtre Lyrique. This idea eventually came to nothing; Ivan IV remained unperformed until 1946.
Les pêcheurs de perles