Dreams Under the Wings of Morpheus

Bellot Ensemble returns to the festival by popular demand, after what the festival director referred to as 'one of the most riveting performances in the festival last year', with a new programme.

Dreams Under the Wings of Morpheus follows the quiet journey from sleep into waking, guided by the figures who shaped the ancient understanding of dreams. Scenes from Cavalli and Lully sit beside Italian and English lullabies, with pieces carrying private messages, expressed through signs rather than speech. In myth, the imagined dream world did not end because the dream was finished but because something real cut through it.

The calls of the nightingale and the cuckoo in works by Merula, Uccellini and Biber act as symbols of morning and awareness, breaking the stillness that sleep had held. We follow this shift into daylight – where love, longing, and reflection appear without the disguises of dreams through works by Monteverdi, Lambert and Lanier, exploring how signs, symbols and quiet natural cues shape the way we understand inner experience.