Metamorphoses - A Midsummer Night's Dream

21. Summer School of Baroque Dance
August 2-9, 2026
Seitenstetten (Lower Austria)

"Of shapes transformed to bodies strange, I purpose to entreat, Ye gods vouchsafe (for you are they wrought this wondrous feat) To further this mine enterprise." Thus the Roman poet Ovid begins his ‘Metamorphoses’, in which he recounts astonishing transformations from ancient legends and mythology – the nymph Callisto is raised to the heavens as the constellation of the Great Bear, the benevolent elderly couple Philemon and Baucis live on as an oak and a lime tree, stones become human, gods take on animal forms. Shakespeare sets his “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in ancient Athens, populated by elves and fairies from British folklore. Inspired by this, in Henry Purcell’s masque “The Fairy-Queen” (1692), humans and gods, elves and goblins come together at the summer solstice, with dance and heavenly music. From there, our summer school takes us further into the 18th century, to Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Joseph Fux.

 

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