TO HONOR

I have decided to create a FUND for singers named after my brother and father….

It will be called the Fabien and Henri Uzzan competition…For people who wonder why two Zs in their names, when I have only one Z in my name…the explanation is simple, everybody in my family has two Zs, I am the only one with a single Z…
Some Uzan with one Z did exist in Tunis, and when my name was written officially, the employee of the administration put just one Z.

I am a mistake from the beginning…. how ironic, I do not even share the same name as they have… It’s as though they never existed, as if they are not part of me, as if they were just a figment of my imagination.

I have already talked about this in preceding postings, but this one will be different.
We all have our headaches, and memories of pain and suffering.

During the past few months for whatever reasons I have been thinking a lot of my brother and my father. I had for so many years canceled their memories, and even obliterated their existence for reasons I don’t know.
Is it possible that for almost 50 years we can refuse to see, to admit, to realize the truth of some events??????

Can we spend an entire life denying the painful events of the past in order to survive, to make a new life, to BE???

Why did I ignore that reality for so long? Why did I continue to exist, to live as if nothing happened?
What was wrong with me? What is wrong with me?
In the course of the past few months I have been invaded with memories of my childhood, of my brother, and father.

In my early years we had a good life in Tunis. We were Jews but had assimilated there, in that country for more than 300 years, even before most of the Arab invasion, and then everything changed suddenly in the fifties, we became strangers, enemies, and JEWS.

It all changed even more when we had to leave Tunisia in 1960 to go to France in a new country where we were trying to survive.

Yes, my brother died when he was 25 years old in car accident, when I was 19 …We were just arriving in Paris from Tunis, we were poor, we were alone, we were Nothing…
AND HE DIES!!! In a stupid car accident!!! Why? Why??
I was at the university studying French literature with a specialty in theater and Philosophy…
Philosophy??? What a joke, it did not help. Descartes, Spinoza, Nietzsche, and all the others did not really help.
I did not go to my brother’s funeral, I was not at his burial; I had an exam that day…
An exam??????  To become another specialist in French literature or Philosophy??? Another joke in my life…

He was buried in the Jewish cemetery of Paris and I was not there, I was not there…for my brother, so I could become a specialist in French literature.  It really helps tremendously in life, being a specialist in French literature!!!!!

I do not think I cried when I learned about his death, and I did not cry for 50 years, I ignored it, I deleted it, I refused to accept it, I went on as if nothing had happened, I behaved for 50 years like I never had a brother and I went on with my life, my struggles, my challenges, my obsession to become somebody.

I am crying now…I cry because he died, I cry because I did not know him, I cry because I imagine what life could have been with him next to me in all these years of struggle. I cry…

Six months after my brother’s death, my father died… He died because his heart was broken, he died because he could not deal with life anymore …He was a Jew in the thirties and early forties under the German occupation, he was a Tunisian Jew when Tunisia fought to be independent from the French, and then the French wanted nothing to do with him when he had to expatriate himself from Tunisia …

He was a lost soul arriving in Paris at the age of 54 with two sons, one who died four years later in a fucking car accident and another one, me, with all my problems of a missed childhood and being an unbalanced young man in his teens…so he died…and left us, my mother and I…Alone in Paris, refusing to admit, denying reality, enclosing myself in my issues.

I am just thinking of my brother and my father more and more.
They never saw me acting, they ever saw me as an adult, they never saw me happy or unhappy, they never saw me directing a play or an opera, they never read what I wrote, they never KNEW ME… and they are gone…

Why???
Why all this???? I do not know, and I really do not want to be better understood or tolerated by the people who do not like me.

Now they are coming back to me, they are present in my memory, my thoughts, and my every day feelings. I see them more and more…Fabien the handsome tall young man with blue eyes, and how much as a child, I wanted to be tall and have blue eyes… Henri, my father, a very stylish man, with his elegance and his incredible ways of charming people…I can see you both, but I cannot remember the sound of your voice, you are like mute figures in my memory….

I wish you were here Fabien and Papa, you would be proud of me, of what I have achieved for myself, for us, for the family name …Yes, you will be proud to know that your younger brother and your son is …
What am I? I still do not know… I probably will never know…

I wish you could have shared some of this with me, share my joys and my achievements… for some people my achievements are insignificant and I am just one more person who tries to be, and they are probably right.
But for us it means something…I did it, for me but also unconsciously for your memory, for what I missed sharing with you.

So we will have a competition in New York for singers and we will honor them with prizes and acknowledgments. 

You will live again in a world that you do not know at all, the world of music. It will be music for the heart, music for the memory, music for the soul. And you will be there for me and for them…

I mentioned many times that we all have our traumas and our bad experiences and our life is sometimes difficult …THAT IS WHY WE ARE PERFORMERS… I beg all of you to deal with it as soon as you can, as soon as you are ready… Use these traumas to enrich your life, to make your life fuller and your life on stage stronger…
Do not wait 50 years to deal with it, have the courage to confront it, but only when you are ready…It is a challenge to know when we are ready, but it will come when you do not expect it, and at that moment do not block it anymore, do not deny it, deal with it and even cherish it.

Fabien and Henri, you will be present in spirit, I am sorry I had erased you from my memory for so long but you will be present in spirit and very close to my heart

bernard uZZan

STAGES

I am scared and happy…I am open to all possibilities but see very little results, I am going to school in TUNIS
I am a Jew in an Arab world in a French colony.
What will the future hold for me? For us?
Will we stay here in Tunisia? Will we move to France?
I am starting to look at girls, trying to know and understand them a little.
Sometimes I like to be alone; sometimes I like the company of friends…but not too many friends.
I wonder what I will be as an adult.
I have a brother but do not speak to him very much, my father is distracted by his problems, and my mother is an inattentive mother of the 1950s.
Do I know what I really want? I don’t think so, I am just trying to understand what life is about, what the purpose is, I don’t think about the next steps very much.
I write short stories…that nobody reads.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
           Questions about life
I AM IN MY TEENS


I am walking in the streets of PARIS, wondering …and wondering…
What should I do with my life? I have practically no family (they all died by the time I was 20) except for my mother whom I rarely see, so I had no obligations there.
After all those years at the university, I could go into teaching but the idea of becoming a professor of young adults like myself made me very dubious.
After all my time in the theater I could choose the acting profession, or become a director … I love the theater, but are there any real possibilities there?
What should I do with my life?
Many people tell me that I am a talented actor, a talented director, a talented whatever, but still, I don’t know what I should really do.
I have become an actor in Paris, trying to make a name for myself, trying to be famous, trying to be relevant. I performed in many theaters, I am the French voice of famous American actors, I haunt the hallways of television studios hoping to be discovered, I go from audition to audition convinced that I am the best and not understanding why the part went to someone else.
I am tempted to become a gangster, some of my friends have already taken the wrong direction, but others seem to be picking the right track…
I am not really alone, I can meet whomever I want, and I do… But none of the experiences and adventures satisfies me… I wonder what will come next?
I am walking the streets of Paris, wondering …and wondering… and I travel all over the world, exploring, trying to understand, and making tons of mistakes.
And I have a great time being in Paris and enjoying every aspect of all life, maybe too much.
I am writing plays and movie scripts…that nobody performs.
I drink wine but always keep control of myself.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  Questions about other people’ life
I AM IN MY TWENTIES

I am now in BOSTON, I teach at the university, I am the director of the French Theater in America, I am also the head of a school, I am a father, I made some choices, I am now responsible for many, many things and people.
I think about my daughter and play with her for hours every day, I want the best for her, so I get up at 6 am in the morning and work at all those different jobs to 11 pm every day…
I need to make money, I am a responsible adult, I work and work and work.
Did I make the right choices?  If not, still time to change?  No, I think I made the right choices, may be not?
I am teaching, acting, directing, running a theater company…I am asking so many questions about myself, others, and I work and work.  Time to acquire everything, time to know, time to think about my next choices, and time to be ME.
I make many friends and as many enemies without understanding how or why but I go on and I try to be everywhere, and do everything, to become somebody.
It is not easy always being the foreigner, the guy who is different, with this damn French accent, I will never lose it, how ironic, I am not even really French…. Some laugh at me, imitate me, some think it sounds cute…cute? That word doesn’t describe my personality at all.
I think about investments, I buy my first house, my first condo in the mountains; I am thinking of the future, I am thinking of becoming financially independent.
I write short stories that nobody wants to read.
I am often angry, impatient, demanding, and egotistical.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  Questions about my life
I AM IN MY THIRTIES

I am now in NEW YORK, I have become an opera director and soon the general director of opera companies, I love what I do, and I made different choices, I moved from Boston, and do not see my daughter as much and miss her…why did that happen to me? No, I did it to myself, I chose a new life for myself at the time, AGAIN, with the advantages, and the failure, the joys and pains.
Have I reached my limits? No, I continue to try to learn.
I have become confident about my profession, now I know, I know my strengths and my weaknesses, I try to stay on top of my own doubts, people look at me and some wait for the first sign of weakness or lack of knowledge.
There have been victories and some defeats… sometimes I disguise my ignorance of certain subjects by being aggressive or funny, I play the roles they expect from me, and the damn French accent is still there.
I attend concerts and make believe that I am a connoisseur of Brahms and Mahler, I play all the games.
My training as an actor and a specialist in literature helped me a lot to convince people of what I know.
In just a few years, I have directed over 50 operas and wonder where that will lead to.
I travel a lot and spend too little time in New York, but I know that soon something must happen; soon I will make it big, now I have all the tools to achieve just that, I am ready for next big step…
I have sold my properties and bought a house in NJ…Diana is making her debut at the Metropolitan and her career is growing immeasurably in Europe… We are now sailing into the possible zone called “success,” and we want more, always more… I am not walking in the streets of some city anymore, I am not HAVING A GOOD TIME WITH FRIENDS, I became what I despised when I was twenty, a careerist thinking only about success, money, and achievement.
I stopped writing because I have no time.
I read and read and read and learn and learn and learn.
  NO  Questions about  life
I AM IN MY FORTIES


Now I am the one telling everybody what to do, what to think, how to behave. I am often lost in the duties of being the big boss.
I live in MONTREAL.
General and artistic director of a big opera company…I am yet again a foreigner, that fact will never change, I still have a French accent in French for the Quebecois instead of a French accent in English for the Americans.
I am using all I know to be better, to give what people expect from me, I have doubts sometimes about what I know, who I am, where I am going. But on the outside I am strong; I let no one suspect my doubts, I cannot give an impression weakness or even uncertainty.
My daughter turned into a teenager, and sometimes I have the feeling that I don’t know her, that I should have been more present, more available for her…
I spend my time taking care of the opera company and directing all over the world, all too often alone, wondering whether that is really what I wanted.
I have lots of real estate but do I really care?
I go to conventions wearing a suit and tie, I am important, I am respected and at times hated, I have very few friends, I am alone most of the time, Diana has her own career and we see each other only when we work together, and that is difficult.
I have almost everything I wanted to have and wonder if that is really what life is about: To have what we want to have.
My Mother died, she was the last survivor of my family for thirty years, and I wonder what death means?
All the others died when I was young and I didn’t give it much thought, too taken up that I was by my own existence. Now my mother is dead, and I think about my brother and my father or is it because I am reaching the age of uncertainty?
I still don’t write.
I don’t read anymore and am no longer learning.
  Questions about the meaning of life
I AM IN MY FIFTIES


I am back in NEW YORK.
I left the Montreal opera, I am just a freelance director and started a management company with my daughter Vanessa, Diana is retired from singing and is happy successfully teaching voice.
I still love to direct after all those 385 productions I have put my name on.
I am thinking a lot about life, especially after a dramatic health warning.
I am happy and at peace, I never loved people as much as I do now, I try to give back as much as I can.
Give back knowledge, experience, friendship, and love.
For the first time in my life I am interested in “causes”, I try to help many organizations and many individuals.
I became generous of my thoughts and of my time and…
Sometimes I wish I could have done that earlier, instead of thinking only about myself but that’s the way it is…
I am thinking about what will happen to those who will be around after my death, forgetting the great line.
“The cemetery is full of people who believed they were indispensable”
I am writing again, novels, opera libretti.
I have more friends than I ever had; I finally have more time for them.
I really care about some of my friends and do everything I can for them.
I tried to reconnect with some people I had problems with, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I have many projects; I hope to carry them out. But they are not the kind of projects I had during the past fifty years,
They are not centered around my needs, my desires but more about what others need.
Sometimes I am still impatient and demanding and impossible but that’s part of my nature, and I regret that but I know deep down that I am at peace with the world and with others now.
I am reading again and learning, about other people…
   Questions about ??????
I AM IN MY SIXTIES

Next year I will be in my SEVENTIES… and then???

PS I STILL HAVE A FRENCH ACCENT.