Harriet Smithson

Harriet Smithson was an Irish actress who gained prominence in the early 19th century. She is famously known for her portrayal of Ophelia in William Shakespeare's Hamlet when an English theatre company performed the play in Paris in 1827.12

This performance deeply affected the French composer Hector Berlioz, who became infatuated with Smithson. His unrequited love and obsession inspired his groundbreaking orchestral work, the Symphonie fantastique. The symphony attempts to depict a sequence of opium dreams stemming from a failed love affair, with a recurring theme representing his idealized image of Smithson. Despite Berlioz's initial unreturned affections, he and Smithson eventually married in 1833, though their union was short-lived.2