In 1860, Georges returned to Paris but refused all offers of teaching and a career as a concert pianist. Instead, he dedicated himself to composition. The director of the Theatre-Lyrique invited Bizet to compose Les pecheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), which Bizet finished in four months. It was produced in September 1863 and, while the production received an indifferent reception, no one could deny Bizet's brilliant scoring and composition.

In 1869, Georges married Genevieve Halevy, and their son, Jacques, was born in 1872. The marriage did not bring much happiness to Bizet. He continued to compose, with modest successes such as L'Arlesienne, but the Bizets were poor and Georges began battling with depression. He also worked on a one-act opera, Djamileh, which was completed in 1872. That opera met with little success, but Bizet was finally convinced he had found his true operatic path. And Djamileh did convince Camille du Locle, co-director of Paris' Opera-Comique, to commission Bizet to write what would become his best-known work, Carmen.

The original version of Carmen premiered on March 3, 1875 and met with only lukewarm response from the audience and critics. Though the opera was not a failure (it ran for 45 more performances), Bizet felt that no one understood his work and battled depression again. He died on June 3, 1875, just three months after Carmen's premiere. Many have speculated that his premature death was due to his despondence, although the official cause of death was a failed heart due to "acute articular rheumatism." Ironically, today Carmen is arguably the most popular opera in the repertory and is annually one of the most produced operas in the world.