October 25 2022
Each week, discover one of the members of the Network of Houses and Museums of European Musicians. These places link the past, present and future, they honor a tangible and intangible heritage and fulfill an essential cultural purpose in Europe. This week, we invite you to discover the history of one of the places that will become, with the Villa Viardot, one of the epicentres of the Centre Européen de Musique: the house of Georges Bizet.
This 19th century bourgeois house, located on the banks of the Seine at the entrance to the town of Bougival, was the last home of the composer Georges Bizet. He died here on 3 June 1875, at the age of 36, after having written and orchestrated Carmen, his masterpiece, from his study with its large windows overlooking the Seine.
"Bizet's death is surrounded by mystery. After the terrible reviews of Carmen on the evening of its first performance at the Opéra Comique, Bizet became depressed, took refuge in Bougival and contracted angina following a swim in the Seine that was a little too cool... Jorge Chaminé tells us the rest... After the composer's death, Carmen became one of the most famous and most performed operas in the world. Bizet, in the last years of his life, was also the neighbour and friend of the great musician Pauline Viardot, whose villa is the other epicentre of the Centre Européen de Musique.''
Teresa Berganza performs "L´amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Habanera) from Carmen (Bizet).
Alain Duault is Franck Ferrand's guest in this October 2018 programme on French radio station Europe 1, devoted to Georges Bizet, whose house in Bougival is at this time the subject of a major rescue operation. Baritone Jorge Chaminé, founder of the Friends of Georges Bizet and president of the Centre Européen de Musique, explains the stakes of this operation.
The house in Bizet was bought in 1982 by the Lemoine family, and when the father died, his daughter Anne-Gaëlle Pellistrandi moved in with her husband and six children in the early 2000s. This family has always carefully preserved this important place of memory, as explained in a 2017 article in Le Figaro.
View of the Seine from Bizet's office (2022 - Centre Européen de Musique).
Thus, the composer's room remained unoccupied and when it was put up for sale, the Pellistrandis expressed their wish not to see it fall into the wrong hands. At the same time, the association of the friends of Georges Bizet, founded by the internationally renowned baritone Jorge Chaminé and presided over by the singer Teresa Berganza, mobilised from 2001 onwards alongside local players to safeguard this place, the Colline des Impressionnistes, where the Villa Viardot and Ivan Tourgueniev's dacha are located (which have also joined the network of the Houses and Museums of European Musicians)
From the beginning of the 2000s, masterclasses were regularly organised, and from 2008 to 2016 the Bougival and Coteaux de Seine Festival was held here. The association of the Centre Européen de Musique took over. In 2017, a fundraising campaign under the patronage of Europa Nostra, a key supporter of the CEM, was conducted to give a second life to this key place of European cultural heritage after the house was put up for sale.
The starting point of this mission to safeguard Bizet's house was the discovery of the Frênes estate in Bougival, located near the Bizet house: "In 2000, Jorge Chaminé discovered the Frênes estate in Bougival, which had been purchased by Pauline Viardot and Ivan Tourguéniev in 1874. He was fascinated by the beauty of the site and convinced of the eminent place held by the property in 19th century artistic Europe, from the Urals (Ivan Tourguéniev) to Spain (Pauline Viardot-Garcia). From then on, he thought that it was worthy of a Great European Project''.
Poster for the fundraising campaign to save Georges Bizet's house in Bougival.
"Let's save Georges Bizet's house - Press conference - House of Europe 21 June 2017". This press conference brings together the main actors of this rescue and in particular Jorge Chaminé, president-founder of the CEM, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, secretary general of Europa Nostra, Luc Wattelle, mayor of Bougival. Anne-Gaëlle Pellistrandi, from the family that owns the Bizet house, recounts the link established with the late composer: "Every year, on the night of 2 to 3 June, my father decided that we should pay tribute to the composer and played the opera Carmen, which was broadcast throughout the house. There was a passion and our parents passed on to us the spirit of what was being experienced''. She also recounts her first meeting with Teresa Berganza and Jorge Chaminé, when they visited the house.
In January 2018, the department of Yvelines acquired Georges Bizet's house with a view to integrating it into the future Centre Européen de Musique in Bougival. In this video, the singer and honorary president of Europa Nostra, Placido Domingo, explains why he supports this ambitious project.
"I found in Bougival a quiet little corner on the water's edge", said Georges Bizet when talking about his villa in Bougival. In March 2018, TV5 Monde filmed a visit to this residence in the company of the founder-president of the Centre Européen de Musique, Jorge Chaminé (from minute 3 onwards on the video).
In 2018, the Bizet House was recognised as a regional heritage site by the Ile-de-France region thanks to the Centre Européen de Musique. The year 2018 is also synonymous with international repercussions for the town of Bougival with the action of safeguarding the cultural heritage in Bougival. Many media around the world are devoting their front pages to this subject. This is the case, for example, of the New York Times, which devotes an entire article to the recent history of the preservation of this house and the Centre Européen de Musique project.
On the occasion of the birth of the Network of the Houses and Museums of European Musicians, on Sunday 3 April 2022, Joséphine Kollmannsberger, Vice-President of the Yvelines Departmental Council, assures us that the department, which acquired the Bizet house, is taking the time to carefully give it a second life, maintains its commitment and explains that Bougival deserves an exceptional spotlight with the Centre Européen de Musique (from the 13th minute onwards in the video).
In 2017, Anne-Gaelle Pellistrandi, former owner of Georges Bizet's house, expressed a wish: "All these places must work together. It's not just a house standing on its own. If Bizet had chosen it, it was because there was an artistic abundance, an abundance of creation, and this is what Bougival must become again. Its vocation is not to remain a town telling a past story, but to remain a place of creation, a town of art with an international reputation. This wish will be fulfilled when the Centre Européen de Musique is built in Bougival with its two beating hearts, its epicentres: the Villa Viardot and the Maison Bizet.
To know more about it, listen to (in french) :
- An RTS podcast on the Maison Bizet
- The day of tribute to Bizet on France Musique (2018)
October 25 2022
Each week, discover one of the members of the Network of Houses and Museums of European Musicians. These places link the past, present and future, they honor a tangible and intangible heritage and fulfill an essential cultural purpose in Europe. This week, we invite you to discover the history of one of the places that will become, with the Villa Viardot, one of the epicentres of the Centre Européen de Musique: the house of Georges Bizet.
This 19th century bourgeois house, located on the banks of the Seine at the entrance to the town of Bougival, was the last home of the composer Georges Bizet. He died here on 3 June 1875, at the age of 36, after having written and orchestrated Carmen, his masterpiece, from his study with its large windows overlooking the Seine.
"Bizet's death is surrounded by mystery. After the terrible reviews of Carmen on the evening of its first performance at the Opéra Comique, Bizet became depressed, took refuge in Bougival and contracted angina following a swim in the Seine that was a little too cool... Jorge Chaminé tells us the rest... After the composer's death, Carmen became one of the most famous and most performed operas in the world. Bizet, in the last years of his life, was also the neighbour and friend of the great musician Pauline Viardot, whose villa is the other epicentre of the Centre Européen de Musique.''
Teresa Berganza performs "L´amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Habanera) from Carmen (Bizet).
Alain Duault is Franck Ferrand's guest in this October 2018 programme on French radio station Europe 1, devoted to Georges Bizet, whose house in Bougival is at this time the subject of a major rescue operation. Baritone Jorge Chaminé, founder of the Friends of Georges Bizet and president of the Centre Européen de Musique, explains the stakes of this operation.
The house in Bizet was bought in 1982 by the Lemoine family, and when the father died, his daughter Anne-Gaëlle Pellistrandi moved in with her husband and six children in the early 2000s. This family has always carefully preserved this important place of memory, as explained in a 2017 article in Le Figaro.
View of the Seine from Bizet's office (2022 - Centre Européen de Musique).
Thus, the composer's room remained unoccupied and when it was put up for sale, the Pellistrandis expressed their wish not to see it fall into the wrong hands. At the same time, the association of the friends of Georges Bizet, founded by the internationally renowned baritone Jorge Chaminé and presided over by the singer Teresa Berganza, mobilised from 2001 onwards alongside local players to safeguard this place, the Colline des Impressionnistes, where the Villa Viardot and Ivan Tourgueniev's dacha are located (which have also joined the network of the Houses and Museums of European Musicians)
From the beginning of the 2000s, masterclasses were regularly organised, and from 2008 to 2016 the Bougival and Coteaux de Seine Festival was held here. The association of the Centre Européen de Musique took over. In 2017, a fundraising campaign under the patronage of Europa Nostra, a key supporter of the CEM, was conducted to give a second life to this key place of European cultural heritage after the house was put up for sale.
The starting point of this mission to safeguard Bizet's house was the discovery of the Frênes estate in Bougival, located near the Bizet house: "In 2000, Jorge Chaminé discovered the Frênes estate in Bougival, which had been purchased by Pauline Viardot and Ivan Tourguéniev in 1874. He was fascinated by the beauty of the site and convinced of the eminent place held by the property in 19th century artistic Europe, from the Urals (Ivan Tourguéniev) to Spain (Pauline Viardot-Garcia). From then on, he thought that it was worthy of a Great European Project''.
Poster for the fundraising campaign to save Georges Bizet's house in Bougival.
"Let's save Georges Bizet's house - Press conference - House of Europe 21 June 2017". This press conference brings together the main actors of this rescue and in particular Jorge Chaminé, president-founder of the CEM, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, secretary general of Europa Nostra, Luc Wattelle, mayor of Bougival. Anne-Gaëlle Pellistrandi, from the family that owns the Bizet house, recounts the link established with the late composer: "Every year, on the night of 2 to 3 June, my father decided that we should pay tribute to the composer and played the opera Carmen, which was broadcast throughout the house. There was a passion and our parents passed on to us the spirit of what was being experienced''. She also recounts her first meeting with Teresa Berganza and Jorge Chaminé, when they visited the house.
In January 2018, the department of Yvelines acquired Georges Bizet's house with a view to integrating it into the future Centre Européen de Musique in Bougival. In this video, the singer and honorary president of Europa Nostra, Placido Domingo, explains why he supports this ambitious project.
"I found in Bougival a quiet little corner on the water's edge", said Georges Bizet when talking about his villa in Bougival. In March 2018, TV5 Monde filmed a visit to this residence in the company of the founder-president of the Centre Européen de Musique, Jorge Chaminé (from minute 3 onwards on the video).
In 2018, the Bizet House was recognised as a regional heritage site by the Ile-de-France region thanks to the Centre Européen de Musique. The year 2018 is also synonymous with international repercussions for the town of Bougival with the action of safeguarding the cultural heritage in Bougival. Many media around the world are devoting their front pages to this subject. This is the case, for example, of the New York Times, which devotes an entire article to the recent history of the preservation of this house and the Centre Européen de Musique project.
On the occasion of the birth of the Network of the Houses and Museums of European Musicians, on Sunday 3 April 2022, Joséphine Kollmannsberger, Vice-President of the Yvelines Departmental Council, assures us that the department, which acquired the Bizet house, is taking the time to carefully give it a second life, maintains its commitment and explains that Bougival deserves an exceptional spotlight with the Centre Européen de Musique (from the 13th minute onwards in the video).
In 2017, Anne-Gaelle Pellistrandi, former owner of Georges Bizet's house, expressed a wish: "All these places must work together. It's not just a house standing on its own. If Bizet had chosen it, it was because there was an artistic abundance, an abundance of creation, and this is what Bougival must become again. Its vocation is not to remain a town telling a past story, but to remain a place of creation, a town of art with an international reputation. This wish will be fulfilled when the Centre Européen de Musique is built in Bougival with its two beating hearts, its epicentres: the Villa Viardot and the Maison Bizet.
To know more about it, listen to (in french) :
- An RTS podcast on the Maison Bizet
- The day of tribute to Bizet on France Musique (2018)
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