t haunted the imagination of many leading members of
the musical press. It sufficed for a work to be at all out of the common
for the epithet "Wagnerian" to be applied to it. The term, it may be
said, was intended to be condemnatory, and it was applied with little
understanding as to its real meaning. The score of the _Pecheurs de
perles_ contains several charming numbers; its dreamy melodies are well
adapted to fit a story laid in Eastern climes, and the music reveals a
decided dramatic temperament. Some of its dances are now usually
introduced into the fourth act of _Carmen_.

On the 3rd of June 1865 Bizet married a daughter of his old master,
Halevy. His second opera, _La Jolie Fitte de Perth_, produced at the
Theatre Lyrique on 26th December 1867, was scarcely a step in advance.
The libretto was founded on Sir Walter Scott's novel, but the opera
lacks unity of style, and its pages are marred by concessions to the
vocalist. One number has survived, the characteristic Bohemian dance
which has been interpolated into the fourth act of _Carmen_. In his
third opera Bizet returned to an oriental subject. _Djamileh_, a one-act
opera given at the Opera Comique on the 22nd of May 1872, is certainly
one of his most individual efforts. Again were accusations of Wagnerism
hurled at the composer's head, and _Djamileh_ did not achieve the
success it undoubtedly deserved. The composer was more fortunate with
the incidental music he wrote to Alphonse Daudet's drama,
_L'Arlesienne_, produced in October 1872. Different numbers from this,
arranged in the form of suites, have often been heard in the
concert-room. Rarely have poetry and imagination been so well allied as
in these exquisite pages, which seem to reflect the sunny skies of
Provence.

Bizet's masterpiece, _Carmen_, was brought out at the Opera Comique on
the 3rd of March 1875. It was based on a version by Meilhac and Halevy
of a study by Prosper Merimee--in which the dramatic element was
obscured by much descriptive writing. The detection of the drama
underlying this psychological narrative was in itself a brilliant
discovery, and in reconstructing the story in dramatic form the authors
produced one of the most famous libretti in the whole range of opera.
Still more striking than the libretto was the music composed by Bizet,
in which the peculiar use of the flute and of the lowest notes of the
harp deserves particular attention.

On the 3rd of June, three months after the