O Sonho

Fernando Pessoa’s text interprets the biblical story of Salomé, bringing to the stage the head of a certain John the Baptist, as well as the man whom the princess calls “father,” Herod. In Pessoa’s version, the characters follow an original thread: unable to live outside her dream, Salomé imagines each character, and it is from her dream that reality is formed. In the end, upon becoming aware of her ability to transform reality from the dream, Salomé falls into a kind of drowsiness: life dissolves, and the dream definitively separates from reality. The writing for the three sopranos constantly blends the three women—the princess and her handmaidens—so that, at times, we do not know exactly which one is the dreamer: they are, in reality, three manifestations of Salomé. Herod plays an important role near the end of the story, while the Captain and the Slave are incidental characters. Fernando Pessoa appears in the prologue as the orthonym, shaded by the silhouettes of his three main heteronyms—Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos.