The love
story that created the Symphonie Fantastique.
Harriet Constance (Smithson) was
a Shakespearean actress, famous in her day who was also the first wife and muse
of Hector Berlioz. She was born the daughter of actors in 1800, at Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland. Extremely
beautiful and graceful, by 1827 she was one of the best known and highly
favored classical actors in the world.
At the height of her career, she
became the figurehead for the French Romantic movement. She was said to have
been the inspiration for Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, the first
great romantic symphony, after Berlioz, who was born near the French Alps, saw her
on stage in 1827 and became infatuated with her.
According to Berlioz, who was 23
at the time, the moment he saw Smithson, he fell in love with her and drowned
her in letters and gifts despite never having met her. He even took and an apartment near her home so he could see her leave and return home and watch her,
through windows, until she went to sleep. It was insane but standard behavior
for him. As a teen, Berlioz suffered from isolation and bouts of uncontrollable
mood swings and dramatic fantasies of love and loss.
Berlioz wrote to a friend, “You
don’t know what love is, whatever you may say. For you, it’s not that rage,
that fury, that delirium which takes possession of all one’s faculties, which
renders one capable of anything.”
He formed the idea of a
“fantastic symphony” portraying an episode in the life of an artist who is
constantly haunted by the vision of the perfect, unattainable woman. The symphony
would have the "idée fixe" (“fixed idea”), a recurring theme of
rising longing and falling despair – a depiction of gripping obsession and the
epitome of Romanticism.
For her part, Smithson simply
ignored the conductor. However, in 1832 a friend invited her to a performance
of Lélio, a sequel to Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Realizing the symphony
was about her, she sent Berlioz a message congratulating him. Berlioz wrote
back and received permission to meet her.
The two became instant lovers despite
the opposition of both families and friends. (And despite neither speaking the
other’s language) One story has it that upon meeting Smithson, Berlioz asked
her to marry him. She said no. He took out a vial of opium from his pocket and
swallowed a lethal dose. She became
hysterical and agreed to marry him. Berlioz produced the antidote from another
pocket and swallowed that. They married at the British Embassy in Paris on October
3, 1833. Their only child was born a
year later.
But the conductor's obsession
faded quickly. Smithson became possessive, resentful and jealous of Berlioz as
his musical success continued, causing Berlioz to avoid her at first and then
to move out. He eventually fell into the waiting arms of Marie Recio, a singer at the Paris Opera, who became
Berlioz’s second wife. Smithson and Berlioz divorced seven years after they
married. She died, alone, in March 1854.
Berlioz died in Paris in 1869 at age 65. Symphonie Fantastique lives on.
Ricio
The finished product of Berlioz obsession
….Symphonie Fantastique…. is cast in five movements: the first a dream, the
second a ball where the artist is haunted by the sight of his beloved. After a
country scene, the fourth movement slips into a nightmare: “Convinced that his
love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium,” explained Berlioz. “The
dose of narcotic plunges him into a heavy sleep. He dreams that he has killed
his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his
own execution.”
Then the work descends into the
thrillingly horrific Dream Of A Witches’ Sabbath and artist’s perfect beloved transforms into a
whore and is cast into Hell (He may have added this to the work based on the
rumor that Smithson had an ongoing affair her manager, who was married) The rumor was….in
fact, it still persists….that Berlioz wrote the work while high as a kite on opium.
Part One
describes a young man who sees and immediately falls in love with the woman of
his dreams. To represent Harriet, Berlioz had a special idea; he wrote a
musical theme which he called his idée fixe, which appears in the first
movement and then reemerges throughout the Symphonie fantastique in different
forms and played on different instruments.
Part Two the
artist finds himself in a variety of locations and situations, but everywhere
he goes his beloved’s image appears before him and disturbs his peace of mind.
Part Three, he finds
himself one evening in the country and hopes that his loneliness will soon be
over.
Part Four shows
the artist - convinced that his love is unappreciated – poisoning himself. The
dose of opium plunges him into a sleep accompanied by the most horrible
visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned and led
to the scaffold, and that he is witnessing his own execution.
In the fifth and final part, he sees
himself at a witches' sabbath, where a terrifying troop of ghosts, sorcerers,
monsters of every kind, gather for his funeral. In the midst of it all, his
beloved appears but in a grotesque form.