Inspired by Berlioz’s own infatuation with Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, Symphonie Fantastique is an opiate-fuelled descent into love, murder, and madness. This pioneering work of Romantic music chronicles an artist’s unrequited love as they encounter scenes at A Ball, a March to the Scaffold and a final, maniacal Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath. The Age’s four-star review said, ‘the ghoulish and the garish were given free rein, the woodwind once again excelling, bringing this night of dreams to an exhilarating conclusion’, while ArtsHub called the concert ‘joyous and often exhilarating’.