A superb presentation copy warmly inscribed by Bizet to the Parisian mezzo-soprano Marie Trelat and bearing what appear to be her performance markings in the roles of Carmen and Mercedes.
Quarto (27x18cm) bound in quarter morocco over red textured paper-covered boards; gilt spine lettering. Bookseller’s label of ‘H Baron, Music and Books 136 Chatsworth Road, London’ to front pastedown. Lithographed title page with Bizet’s inscription in ink at the head of the page: ‘A Madame Trelat son devoue et respectuez ami Georges Bizet’. The Catalogue follows the title page and pp351 of music. This is a copy that has been used for music-making and the following were noted during collation: old paper repair along gutter of pp28-29 and pp34-35; occasional pencil annotations to Carmen’s vocal line (p97; p121); paper repair along gutter of pp112-113 and outer corner at tail of pp113 and p117; closed tear, repaired, to p119. Paper repair along gutter of p121; 6cm closed tear at head of p171. Small triangle of paper, lower, outer corner of pp 235 and 237 torn away, not affecting text. Annotations to vocal parts pp238-239 picking out Mercedes’ entries as well as phrasing (p243). Closed tear at head of p245 (7cm). This score has intermittent performance-related annotation, most intensely to Carmen’s mezzo-soprano line around page 121 and to the roles of Frascita and Mercedes in the Trio, No20, between Carmen and the pair who are sung by a mezzo-soprano (Mercedes) and the other a soprano (Frascita). At one point the pencilled annotation requires Frascita and Mercedes to swap parts, with further breath marks for Mercedes’ line (p238). This has the effect of allowing Mercedes to sing the lower notes in this passage and allocating to Frascita the higher notes. All of which raises the strong possibility that Trelat, a mezzo-soprano friend of Bizet, then in her late 30s when she received this score, used it to sing excerpts from the opera at her salon when taking the parts of Carmen or Mercedes.
Bizet’s Carmen premiered in Paris in 1875 but within 3 months the composer was dead, making inscribed copies of his masterpiece rare. The recipient of this copy of the opera was his friend Marie Trelat (1837-1914) who hosted a regular Friday evening salon regularly attended by Bizet, Gounod, Saint Saens and other artistic Parisian figures at 6 Rue de Seine. Herself an accomplished amateur mezzo-soprano, Trelat was also the dedicatee of the 6th of Bizet’s Songs of the Pyrenees and she was married to the surgeon Ulysse Trelat who numbered Bizet among his patients. In the 20th century this book entered the collection of George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, founder of Opera Magazine, Director of the Royal Opera House, later Opera North and close friend of Benjamin Britten. Lascelles who died in 2011 left his music collection to Opera North who subsequently disposed of the rare items, among them this score. Lascelles has annotated an article about Bizet from the L’Opera de Nice that is laid in.
Bizet’s early death at the age of 36 denied him public acclaim for Carmen but he was well aware that he’d written something greater than all his other works. He wrote in a letter to a friend that he had ‘absolute certainty of having found my path’. Even so, contemporary Parisian critics were ‘shocked by the drastic realism of the action’ but nothing could prevent his scandalous opera about an irrepressible young Spanish woman going on to become one of the best known and best loved pieces of operas of all time. A simply terrific association copy.
