NON-STICK PANS

MARION MCMULLEN looks at operas and musicals that brushed off a drubbing from the critics to become huge hits

- MARION MCMULLEN

FRENCH composer Bizet died believing that his opera Carmen was his biggest failure.

The opera about a soldier who falls for a gypsy called Carmen was first performed 150 years ago on March 3 at the Opera Comique in Paris.

The storyline shocked audiences at the time and the production was described as "painful, blatant, noisy and eminently repulsive".

Bizet died shortly afterwards at the age of 36, unaware that his work would become one of the most performed operas.

A 1954 film version offered a con- temporary twist on the story. Entitled Carmen Jones, it starred Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte and became a hit.

The opening night of composer Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1 in St Petersburg received a similarly cool initial response, shattering the confidence of the 23-year-old Russian who did not write more music for three years.

The conductor was said to be drunk for the premiere and composer César Cui's review of the piece sniped that it would "delight the inhabitants of hell".

The opening of Rossini's comic opera The Barber Of Seville in Rome in 1816 was also beset by problems.