 Bizet 's third envoi was delayed for nearly a year by the prolonged illness and death , in September 1861 , of his mother . He eventually submitted a trio of orchestral works : an overture entitled La Chasse d 'Ossian , a scherzo and a funeral march . The overture has been lost ; the scherzo was later absorbed into the Roma symphony , and the funeral march music was adapted and used in a later opera . Bizet 's fourth and final envoi , which occupied him for much of 1862 , was a one @-@ act opera , La guzla de l 'émir . As a state @-@ subsidised theatre , the Opéra @-@ Comique was obliged from time to time to stage the works of Prix de Rome laureates , and La guzla duly went into rehearsal in 1863 . However , in April Bizet received an offer , which originated from Count Walewski , to compose the music for a three @-@ act opera . This was Les pêcheurs de perles , based on a libretto by Michel Carré and Eugène Cormon . Because a condition of this offer was that the opera should be the composer 's first publicly staged work , Bizet hurriedly withdrew La guzla from production and incorporated parts of its music into the new opera . The first performance of Les pêcheurs de perles , by the Théâtre Lyrique company , was on 30 September 1863 . Critical opinion was generally hostile , though Berlioz praised the work , writing that it " does M. Bizet the greatest honour " . Public reaction was lukewarm , and the opera 's run ended after 18 performances . It was not performed again until 1886 . 
