Toward the end of 1857 Bizet started on his journey to Rome. He journeyed leisurely, and entered the city Jan. 28, 1858. It was in 1859 that he sent, according to rule, a composition to the “Académie des Beaux-Arts”; it was not a mass however; it was an operetta in Italian: “Don Procopio,” in two acts. The reviewer, Ambroise Thomas, praised the ease, the brilliancy, “the fresh and bold style” of the composer, and he deplored the fact that Bizet had not given his attention to a work of religious character. The score of this operetta is lost. In 1859 Bizet traveled in Italy and obtained permission to remain in Rome during the one year, that, according to tradition, should be spent in Germany. He sent to the Académie “Vasco de Gama,” a descriptive orchestral composition with choruses; three numbers of an orchestral suite; and, if Pougin is correct, an operetta in one act, “La Guzla de l’Emir”; but Pigot claims that this latter work was not begun until after the return to Paris.
He returned and found his mother on her deathbed. He was without means, without employment; and he was crushed by the death of the one for whom he was eager to work day and night. He once wrote to her from Rome, “100,000 francs, the sum is nothing! Two successes at the Opéra Comique! I wish to love you always with all my soul, and to be always as to-day the most loving of sons.”
He was a “prix de Rome,”—too often an honor that brings with it no substantial reward. He was a “prix de Rome,” as was the unfortunate described by Legouvé:
“Listen to the wretched plight
Of a melancholy man,
A young man of sixty years,
Whom they call ‘un prix de Rome.’”
Burning with desire to write for the operatic stage, he gave music lessons. Dreaming of dramatic situations and grand finales, he made pianoforte arrangements of airs from operas written by others.
The Count Walewski granted Carvalho, the manager of the Théâtre-Lyrique, a subsidy of 100,000 francs, on the condition that an important work by a “prix de Rome” should be produced each year. Bizet was the first to profit thereby. He wrote the music for “The Pearl Fishers.” The text was by Carré and Cormon, and the opera was produced with gorgeous scenic setting, Sept. 30, 1863. The opera was given eighteen times, and it was not sung again in Paris until 1889, at the Gaité, and in Italian, with Calvé and Talazac, when it was only heard six times.
It is stated in Pigot’s “Bizet et son Œuvre” that Blau and Gallet wrote a libretto, “Ivan, the Terrible,” which was set to music by Bizet in the style of Verdi. Gallet says that neither he nor Blau wrote a word of such a libretto.