One should add to the romantic universe of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner the love story of Maria Cantacuzino and the composer George Enescu, as the mystery of its extraordinary tension has been revealed in the recently published Ombres et lumières, Souvenirs d'une Princesse Moldave (Onesti, Aristarc Publishing, 2000), a critical bilingual edition by Elena Bulai. The manuscript was conceived over the years by Maruca, the future wife of the musician, in French and Romanian, and it was probably revised many times, according to the suggestions of those who were fortunate enough to have previously read the typed manuscript (or even some hand-written chapters signed by the author, especially for them). Some of these fortunate readers were George Enescu himself, Cella Delavrancea, Mircea Eliade, Romeo Draghici, Pia Radu, Alice Voinescu, Mircea Vulcanescu, the journalist Miron and the pianist Carola Grindea (who entrusted the archives to King's College, London, with the last version of the memoirs).Although she was two years older than George Enescu (Maruca was born in 1879), she survived her husband by 13 years and died in a medical clinic of Montreux (1968), at almost 90 years of age. The destiny made both these Moldavian "heroes" pass away far from their country: Enescu in France and Maruca in Switzerland. We should also remember that the details of their deaths were quite similar, as the two spouses, who had lived in the palace on Calea Victoriei, in the famous architectural monument with the sculpted lions next to the breathtaking stairs at the entrance, spent their last moments in the Atala Hotel in Paris (the musician), and the luxurious Hotel des Trois Couronnes in Vevey (Maruca). The definitive reunification of the two lovers took place in 1972, when the body of the "beloved princess" was laid next to her husband, in the same grave of the Père Lachaise Cemetery, in the capital of France, thus ending the torrid love affair of two exceptional human beings, totally opposed in terms of character, but identical in the greatness of their love for each other.Maruca met Pynx, for this is how she intimately called him, due to his Sphinx-like profile, in 1907, at Sinaia, the wonderful resort in the Carpathians, where the Hohenzollerns built, in the 19th century, the famous PelesCastle, today a national museum in Romania."When they were trapped in the turmoil of their passion – the infatuated princess wrote – in the flame of the moment burning like a golden torch – the lovers did not suspect the emptiness and sadness that their happiness was spreading. This happiness was the source of a slow disease within their circle, decomposing regular existence around them." Maruca Cantacuzino was living at the Caprita villa and George Enescu at the PelesCastle, where the genius had been practically adopted by a "second mother", the poet queen Carmen Sylva.Maria Cantacuzino-Enescu (1879-1968), the heiress of an old aristocratic family from Moldavia, Dumitru Rosetti-Tescanu and Alice Joras, was initiated into European culture in Tescani, Bacau county, by the stern Miss Belbin who introduced her to English and French, painting and piano, ancient history and the history of England, classical Latin and mythology. Married in 1898 to Mihail Cantacuzino, the son of the great politician and landowner George Grigore Cantacuzino, known as "The Croesus" (for the extravagant fashion in which he squandered his money), Maria was received in the highest aristocratic circles, including the Court of the Romanian Royal Palace. This whimsical creature, who inherited two monumental edifices in Tescani and Bucharest, soon got bored with her husband and two children, and became entangled in the love affair that consumed her entire destiny – the romance with George Enescu, which developed until 1937, when, with both her unfaithful husband and her reckless son (Bazu Cantacuzino), a passionate pilot, dead, she was able to marry the extraordinary musician, in an intimate circle. Maruca's affairs had become public knowledge (especially the one with the famous philosopher and politician Nae Ionescu), and the "House of Lions" in Bucharest had turned into a shelter of secret encounters, above the pleasures of music.The letters of the two lovers and Maruca's memoirs reveal the intensity of a legendary passion. "The moment I saw him, he put a spell on my life with one gaze… My soul has been under its charm for more than ten years, and it will remain like this for many more, until our lives will come to an end… I am waiting for him as feverish as an ill man awaiting dawn, after a sleepless night of torment… For a legendary life like ours, with its entire world of fabulous dreams, as well as the spontaneous flame that has ignited us for more than thirty-five years, surely belong to eternity." (Maruca)And the maestro, who had dedicated the masterpiece Oedipus to her, calling her by the mythical name of the beautiful Egyptian goddess Isis, wrote to the Moldavian "beloved princess": "My heart is strong now, Isis, I feel the power of the wholeness inside me and it is all due to your love… What is it that I desire? That the light you receive of me should never fade away… Oh, Isis! I want to fall asleep for ever with the image of your beloved gaze, caressing the last moments of my agony… Is it like this that I am going to die, with your eyes, like dark instantiations of the sun, upon me?" The mystery of supreme love resolved in time – like in the ending of Verdi's Aida – under the marble tombstone in the Père Lachaise cemetery…
by Viorel Cosma (b. 1927)
