The playbills had announced that the solo violin part in the Nina ballet would be played by Baillot. Either because he was indisposed or for some other reason, the virtuoso was unable to perform; but the management saw fit to inform the audience only by means of a minute strip of paper pasted across the placard at the entrance of the Opéra, which is never read by anybody. The vast majority were therefore expecting to hear the great violinist.

We had reached the moment when Nina, supported on either side by her father and her betrothed, comes to her senses. Not even Mlle Bigottini's touching pantomime could make us forget Baillot. the scene was nearly over when: "Wait a minute, what about the violin solo?" I said, in a voice loud enough to be heard. "He's right," someone said, "it looks as if they're leaving it out. Baillot! Baillot! The violin solo!" At that the whole pit fired up. And then—something unheard of at the Opéra—the entire house rose and demanded that the program be carried out according to the bill. While this uproar was proceeding, the curtain came down. At that, the clamour redoubled. The players, alarmed by the fury of the pit, hastily abandoned the field; whereupon the enraged public invaded the orchestra, hurling chairs in all directions, overturning desks, bursting the drums. In vain I shouted, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, what are you doing? You're breaking the instruments. This is madness. Can't you see that's old Chénié's double bass, a wonderful instrument with a superb black tone?" No one listened to me now. The rioters did not stop until they had laid waste the whole orchestra and left numerous instruments and chairs in ruins.

—Hector Berlioz, Memoirs