Bizet e Ravel: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Artistas

Auditorium Parco della Musica

Auditorium Parco della Musica is a music complex consisting of an outdoor theatre in a park setting and three indoor concert halls. Situated in Rome´s ancient city centre, where the Olympic Games were held in 1960, the complex is home to the famed Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Designed by talented architects Franco Zagari, Renzo Piano, and Jürgen Reinhold, the complex has played a central role in Italian cultural life since its inauguration in 2002. The complex has an extensive program of chamber music concerts as well as pop, rock, jazz, theatrical and literary performances, cinema and art exhibitions.

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet devoted his relatively short life of 36 years to the musical theatre. The opera Carmen, pearl of his oeuvre, is still one of the most frequently performed operas in the world. He was born in 1838 into a musically educated family – his father was a singing teacher and his mother a professional piano player. At the age of 4, young George could already read notes and play the piano, and six years later he became enrolled at the Paris Conservatory. After finishing his studies, Bizet won the prestigious Prix de Rome for his cantata Clovis et Clotilde, that allowed him to work solely on his own compositions for five years. He spent four rather carefree years in Italy from 1857 to 1860 where he travelled, composed and developed his talent. After coming back to Paris, he faced struggles and found it very difficult to achieve recognition for his music. In order to make a living, he gave private lessons, composed light entertaining music and made arrangements of piano works by other composers. In fact, he could have easily become a successful pianist as he was a virtuoso piano player and once impressed Franz Liszt himself with the performance of one of Liszt’s piano compositions. But Georges Bizet did not look for a way to make easy money and was adamant about his intention to only compose music. In 1872 he wrote two operas, Djamileh and L’Arlesienne, which were received very coldly but now are considered to be a representation of Bizet’s artistic maturity. Soon before his death in 1875, Carmen premiered in the Opera Comique, but the audience’s verdict was rather negative. Never having witnessed public acclaim during his life, George Bizet now is one of the most famous opera composers in history.