It's amazing what we do behind our own backs. The subconscious is a peculiar and fascinating phenomenon. But I don't know what Doctors Freud or Jung would have made of the great aria I dreamed last night. It was extremely beautiful, but unfortunately it doesn't exist - at least not as far as I know.
It is a grand romantic aria, for tenor. It's in French, with dusky orchestration involving lots of cellos and harp, somewhat a la Werther - indeed, the closest match of composer I could come up with was Massenet, though in the Land of Nod it sounded rather better than most of his work. It's not wholly unlike 'Pourquoi me reveiller?', but it's longer, more inventive, less strophic, wider ranging. It's a passionate appeal by the opera's hero - for presumably this non-existent aria comes from a non-existent opera - to someone who presumably is the heroine or anti-heroine, pleading with her to leave whatever/whoever it may be that's making them all miserable. It ends with the desperate words: "Ah, quittez-la, quittez-la!"
Then I woke up and realised I'd overslept and missed Joseph Calleja in both the Verdi Requiem last night (I'm slightly allergic to the piece, but let's not digress) and on BBC Breakfast this morning. Maybe Dr Jung would say that has something to do with it.
Has anyone seen my dream aria? If there is any way of identifying or recapturing it, I'd love to know.
