 Back in Paris with two years of his grant remaining , Bizet was temporarily secure financially , and could ignore for the moment the difficulties that other young composers faced in the city . The two state @-@ subsidised opera houses , the Opéra and the Opéra @-@ Comique , each presented traditional repertoires that tended to stifle and frustrate new homegrown talent ; only eight of the 54 Prix de Rome laureates between 1830 and 1860 had had works staged at the Opéra . Although French composers were better represented at the Opéra @-@ Comique , the style and character of productions had remained largely unchanged since the 1830s . A number of smaller theatres catered for operetta , a field in which Offenbach was then paramount , while the Théâtre Italien specialised in second @-@ rate Italian opera . The best prospect for aspirant opera composers was the Théâtre Lyrique company which , despite repeated financial crises , operated intermittently in various premises under its resourceful manager Léon Carvalho . This company had staged the first performances of Gounod 's Faust and his Roméo et Juliette , and of a shortened version of Berlioz 's Les Troyens . 
