The Operas

It has long been known that although Bizet’s music was little recognized in his lifetime, the worldwide success of Carmen created a demand that was met by his publisher Choudens with a great number of scores and arrangements, few of which represented the music as the composer had intended it. Of the six operas in our series, only La Jolie Fille de Perth and Djamileh were published in Bizet’s lifetime. The remainder were published posthumously in corrupt versions that seriously distort the originals. For many years the performance of these operas has been hindered by the lack of reliable material based on original sources.

The editor of these volumes, Hugh Macdonald, is a well known scholar in the field of French music, having been General Editor of the 26-volume New Berlioz Edition (Bärenreiter), completed in 2006, and editor of several volumes in Bärenreiter’s series L’Opéra Français. He created the online Bizet Catalogue in 2014, and his study of Saint-Saëns’s operas Saint-Saëns and the Stage appeared in 2019.

The volumes are printed on high-quality paper 22.5 x 32 cm, in a stiff paper binding. The scores provide Critical Notes that summarise the history of the work and its sources and give information on alternative versions and readings. The scores are laid out in a manner that best serves the reader or conductor. Since it was normal in French music of this period to call for clarinets and brass instruments in a variety of different keys, often simultaneously, these lines are printed at sounding pitch (in the orchestral parts the players are reading the original pitches).

Vocal scores and orchestral parts are available on hire. Questions about the renting of Fishergate material for the performance of works published in the series BIZET’S OTHER OPERAS may be addressed either to Fishergate Music or to Alkor-Edition Kassel, who handle the rights and rental material for such performances.

Click the score cover for product details