_Carmen_ was produced at the Paris Opéra-Comique March 3, 1875. The first performance was coldly received. Charles Pigot (Bizet's biographer) informs us that the prelude to the second act was repeated; the air of the Toreador and the quintet were applauded: that was all. The curtain fell on each act to complete indifference. The discouragement of the composer seems to have been deep. We do not wonder at it. Vincent d'Indy told Edmond Galabert that after the first act he and a group of young musicians met Bizet on the sidewalk near the stage entrance of the theatre and felicitated him on the life and colour in the music. Bizet responded: "Vous êtes les premiers qui me disiez ça, et je crains bien que vous ne soyez les derniers." _Carmen_ was a failure. The reviews were bad. There were, curiously enough, many charges of immorality. Pigot assures us that Camille du Locle, the director of the theatre, who never believed in _Carmen_, was more or less responsible for these. To a minister who wrote in asking for a loge for the first night he replied that it would perhaps be better if he came to the general rehearsal to see if he found the piece sufficiently respectable for his wife and daughters!... Possibly these charges of immorality awakened curiosity. At any rate it is certain that after the fifth performance the receipts rose and the apathy of the audiences became less marked. The piece was given for the thirty-seventh time on June 13, just before the theatre closed for the summer. Bizet had died June 3. In the fall _Carmen_ was revived and given thirteen representations; then not again in Paris until 1883. At various times attempts have been made to prove that _Carmen_ did not fail when it was first produced. The most notable of these is an article contributed to the "Ménestrel" (1903; p. 53) by Arthur Pougin entitled "La Légende de la Chute de _Carmen_ et la Mort de Bizet" in which he quotes Mme. Galli-Marié: "L'insuccès de _Carmen_ à la création, mais c'est une légende! _Carmen_ n'est pas tombée au bout de quelques représentations, comme beaucoup le croient.... Nous l'avons jouée plus de quarante fois dans la saison, et quand ce pauvre Bizet est mort, le succes de son chef d'œuvre semblait definitivement assis."... Pigot scoffs at this, pointing out that the exigencies of the répertoire often make it necessary for a director to perform a work oftener than it will pay to do so. His evidence is cumulative and for the most part convincing. According to H. Sutherland Edwards, who seems to have acquired this information from Marie Roze, in its original form the opera included two complete airs for Carmen which, in the end, the composer and his librettists decided to suppress. The gipsy was to have been represented as capable of remorse (!) and after the scene in which she foretells her death by the cards was to be left alone to give vent to her feelings in a pathetic air! The other omitted air occurred in the last act.