Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Sir Simon Rattle

Inspired by Byron’s poetry, Harold in Italy is awash with unforgettable orchestral colour and incident with the prominent, expressive solo viola cast as a ‘melancholic dreamer’ traversing mountains, encountering pilgrims and a bandits’ orgy along the way.

Infatuated by the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, Berlioz poured his desire for her into the Symphonie fantastique, an epic, whirlwind ride from quiet reverie to wild abandon, through a lovelorn artist’s increasingly feverish, opium-fuelled visions culminating in a grotesque march to the hangman’s scaffold and a demonic Witches’ Sabbath.

Tickets €15, €39, €60, €74, €95

Readers are advised to check with the venue before relying on the details published here.