Symphonie fantastique

When an unattainable Irish actress becomes the object of a composer's every fantasy, it inspires the most extravagant symphony in the history of music! With his Fantastique (1830), Berlioz immerses himself in the world of Romanticism: his passion for Harriet Smithson is represented as the psychedelic delirium of a young artist under the effects of opium. After their triumph at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the OPRL and Gergely Madaras return to this musical narrative, cinematic before its time, which presents us in turn with a scene at a grand ball, day dreaming in a field, a march to the scaffold or a witches’ sabbath to the sound of the Dies irae.