Until November 8, the historical heritage service of the City of Nice is offering an exhibition on the life of Hector Berlioz, a great composer and writer who stayed multiple times in the Azurean city.
Hector Berlioz is considered a figure in the History of Music, an avant-garde composer, as well as a prolific writer and critic. Several times, he stayed in Nice, a city for which he had a particular affection. It is here that he began several musical creations, such as the overture to King Lear.
Credits: Nice, Promenade du Midi and the Ponchettes, around 1890-1903, postcard, Nice Cรดte d’Azur Archives
The exhibition recounts the three stays of the artist in Nice, including one at the Bellanda Tower in 1844. The panels installed for the occasion are part of the landscaping and restoration project of the Castle Hill. They are also a point of the guided tour scheduled for the second semester of 2019 of the said hill. The exhibition notably relies on Berlioz’s correspondences and his Memoirs, where one can find the following quote:
ยซHere I am inhaling the warm and fragrant air of Nice with full lungs; here are life and joy flying towards me, and music embracing me, and the future smiling at me; and I stay in Nice for a whole month wandering among the orange groves, plunging into the sea, sleeping on the heathers of the Villefranche mountains, watching from this radiant observatory the ships coming, passing, and disappearing silently. This is how I spent in Nice the twenty most beautiful days of my life.
Oh Nizza! I have found nothing more beautiful than this inspired hill, neither Capri nor the radiant bay of Salamis can compare. I have found my city, it is Niceยป.
