Bizet was of the opinion that one should combat the prejudice that only non-artists can judge impartially a work of art. He did not realize that he himself had the most to suffer from the adverse criticism of his fellow musicians. Although today the recognition of Bizet's genius is almost universal, there prevails still in certain musical quarters the tendency to classify him among the light opera composers; and I have heard a well known modernist speak with superciliousness, yea disdain, of his Carmen and Arlesienne.

Lightness with these connoisseurs means lack of worth. When the music is not exuberant with counterpoint, with polyphonic intricacies, when the orchestration is not filled with numberless clumsy instruments, the work belongs in their opinion to an inferior order; it is not an opera, but an "operetta."