This month marks the 150th anniversary of the opening night of one of the best-known operas of all time. Yet, the story of Carmen’s scandalous premiere, which might have contributed in part to its creator’s early demise, is often overshadowed by the work’s subsequent success. Before cementing itself as a classic around the globe, Carmen was performed in a miserable initial run to an uncomprehendingly conservative Parisian public.

Up until 1875, Georges Bizet had experienced a relatively mediocre musical career. Despite showing promise as a student during his time at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won numerous prizes as well as the tutelage of Charles Gounod, his professional career was marred by poor health. Bouts of quinsy, perennial muscular rheumatism and shortness of breath in his sleep conspired to limit him to hourly work as a piano teacher and transcriber. Then, when commissioned, his freedom of composition was often restricted by vain theatre managers or other creatives. As such, he had produced little that demonstrated his creative capacity and his work was scarcely known to the public.

In 1873, Bizet was commissioned by the Opéra Comique in Paris to write a new opera. He chose to adapt a novella of the same name by Prosper Mérimée with the help of two librettists, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Throughout the writing and development process of the opera, pressure mounted over the themes portrayed in the play and its suitability for the Parisian audience. Most scrutiny came from a single director of the Opéra Comique, Adolphe de Leuven, who opposed the story for its displays of bawdiness and femicide. His opposition hampered the writers’ progress up until his eventual resignation from the theatre, at which point Bizet and his team were afforded their creative license again until the piece’s completion. Bizet devoted himself wholly to what he considered his greatest work, even rewriting parts and tunes to better suit their chosen performers and, after hurdling a few delays, completed the full orchestration of Carmen in 1874.

Many months of preparation culminated in a final dress rehearsal that was well received. However, the Opéra Comique tended to put on operas with more classical themes: stories that championed honourable values; characters whose behaviours could be imitated by the audience; and generally, upbeat, positive plots. When Carmen premiered on 3 March 1875, the drama was found to be sordid and scandalous, the characters portrayed, immoral, and the ending, too macabre. It was considered so audacious by the conservative Parisian audience of the time that they sat in silence as the curtains fell on the opening night and, though many critics could not deny Bizet’s talent and the theatrical intelligence of the piece, the common review was negative. He offended the sentiments of the day.

As the published reviews emerged the following day, the spread of outrage became more evident. The opinion pieces remonstrated the opera’s structure, characters and plot, as well as the music. Perhaps most scathing were the accusations of plagiarism in the words of Bizet’s former mentor, Gounod: ‘Take the Spanish airs and mine out of the score, and there remains nothing to Bizet’s credit but the sauce that masks the fish.’

On the very day of the premiere, Bizet had coincidentally been made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, yet the scale of scandal that ensued caused such a stir that Bizet was almost stripped of this prestigious order of merit.

Despite the backlash, the initial run of performances continued for many months and was already scheduled to be performed in Vienna. Unfortunately, by then Carmen’s failure to please the critics had weighed heavily on the 36-year old Frenchman. Three months after the premiere, on the day of its 33rd performance, Bizet succumbed to a second heart attack and died.

The Frenchman had endured years of illness and, even as a teenager, reckoned that only a short life would need to be endured for him to enjoy a ‘full gamut of misery’. Indeed, if he had survived a few more years, he might have also enjoyed the praise of some of the greatest figures of the time.

Subsequent performances abroad were much more enthusiastically received and started to gain momentum. Nietzsche described the music as ‘perfect’ and went on to herald the opera’s cultural contributions. Bismarck claimed to have seen the opera 27 times and Tchaikovsky, after hearing it for the first time in 1876, proclaimed Carmen ‘a masterpiece in every sense of the word’.

The themes of extreme passions in Carmen, which, somewhat hypocritically, were dismissed as immoral at the time by society in Paris, were not hitherto commonly portrayed on the French stage. For an audience that was accustomed to the humour and satire of the Opéra Comique – hence the name – and the gentle Italian style of opera that had been popular at the theatre for at least a century, the tragic plot of Carmen clashed with both expectations and sensibilities.

The score also stirred up contention with many critics for allowing the orchestra to ring out too much, rather than prioritising the vocal parts. This stylistic novelty, categorised as ‘Wagnerism’, rattled many of the French spectators, no doubt considering their capital had fallen to German-Prussian forces not five years previously and, as a result, the German Empire was in full swing throughout Europe.

It could be argued, however, that the tragedy might have only been such a surprise to those early viewers given the choice of venue. Audiences of other opera houses in the city at the time were no strangers to more solemn pieces. Moreover, Carmen had its origins in Spanish romantic dramas, of which some had almost exaggeratedly tragic endings and were all the rage in theatres throughout Spain. While also influenced by the lighter Italian style, Spanish plays from the mid-19th century had started to shift away from moralistic themes in favour of realism, costumbrismo and exoticism – all of which are evident in Carmen. While this form of drama had developed and become popular in Spain, it was perhaps an oversight to think that it would take French audiences by the same storm. Nevertheless, the themes Bizet introduced were eventually accepted eagerly by audiences around the world. Carmen became not only a canonical opera, but also cementied a fiery stereotype of Spain which proved irresistible to audiences, even, eventually, in France.

By no stretch is Bizet’s contribution the only work to have survived a disastrous premiere. Verdi had  similarly shocked audiences with La traviata (1853) by also deploying a touch of ‘immorality’ at its core. But perhaps no other launched from causing such drama at the outset to achieving such acclaim as did Carmen. Over its 150-year lifetime, Bizet’s masterpiece has been performed extensively to  eager audiences, displaying all the same racy passion as its fateful first show. Its longevity is a testament to the deliberate genius of Bizet’s creativity and with every performance we still recognise its immortal relatability. As he once said in response to his critics: ‘As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.’