Bizet L’Arlésienne

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Bizet L’Arlésienne Program Notes

Georges Bizet’s  L’Arlésienne  was  a  short  story  by  Alphonse  Daudet,  included  in  his  1869  collection  Letters  From  My  Windmill,  which  depicts  life  in  Southern  France.  In  the  story,  Jan,  a  young  man  from  the  village,  has  fallen  in  love  with  a  woman  from  the  larger,  coastal  town  of  Arles  (near  Marseille).  More  cosmopolitan  (perhaps),  she  has  had  other  lovers,  and  the  townspeople  disapprove  –  he  is  forbidden  to  see  her.  (So  is  the  audience  –  she  never  appears  in  the  play!)  Heartbroken,  Jan  commits  suicide,  a  very  common  plot  point  in  the  Romantic  era,  with  its  penchant  for  tragic  romantics.  Bizet,  himself,  was  to  die  at  36.  From  the  27  pieces  of  incidental  music  he  wrote  for  the  play  form  of  L’Arlésienne,  Bizet  arranged  an  orchestral  suite  (Suite  No.  1.)  After  Bizet’s  death,  his  friend  Ernest  Guiraud  arranged  a  Suite  No.  2  from  L’Arlésienne.dz  Guiraud  actually  took  one  movement,  the  Menuetto,  from  another  work,  Bizet’s  opera  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth.

Georges Bizet Born: October 25, 1838, Paris, France Died: June 3, 1875, Bougival, France

Categories: Program Notes