Written after he exhausted his life line, Hector Berlioz’s own “Of
human bondage” tells of the
protagonist’s inner turmoil,. Leslie Howard, a medical student, bewitched
and bewildered and bewitched by Bette Davis, playing out a waitress ,listening
with her third ear, to the medico apprentice’s angst... while gravitating
toward a residency..
II
His 5 act opera “Les Troyens”,
Berlioz not unlike Somerset Maughan’s
intern, not identifying with his
father, a provincial physician, parent’s
admonition and into the less convoluted
trip of recognizing symptoms and diagnosis by
the meat doctors.
The oedipus playing out between
father and son forever. Rivals for the
mother
passion.
Hector must have been devastated
by the Parisian medical scene. The eldest of four children, he tried to evolve,
go with his muse, breaking the umbilical “chord”
“Doctors Dilemma” by
George Bernard Shaw, peoples people
III
Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore tailored in their white coats and wheel chair, the encumbrances
of their “Doctor Kildare” flicks were but simply plotted reality scene, years
before television broke taboos with “ Ben Casey” “Marcus Welby, M.D.
E.R..... Grey’s Anatomy” into the now.
Ayre’s own “All
Quiet on the Westerm Front” stormed into his ocean of humanity, becoming a
conscientious objector, during World War 2..
IV
Two poets, Heine of
Dusseldorf and Britain’s Auden wrote...Heine, a stone’s throw from the
Opera House “ he is an immense nightingale, a lark as great as an eagle.... the
music causes me to dream of fabulous empires filled with fabulous sins”
When Berlioz, split out from his Anatomy lectures, he walked to the Odeon,
where as his karma had it, he fell in love with an English speaking actress
Harriet Smithson, acting out the Bard’ “Queen Mab” soliloquy
Whether that love was
requited, they did marry later. She spoke no” parle vous” , he spoke no
English, the relationship lasting some even years, notwithstanding no meeting
of the tongues.
Auden from his base wrote “ Whoever wants to know about 19th
century romanticism, it is essential to understand Berlioz”
David Dubal summed it up, didn’t he? “Every aspect of his
personal Romanticism appears in this vast, tumultuous score. It is sweeping in
its drama, its compassion, and its tragic impact.”
The City that never sleeps, January 29, 2013
