Titania has fallen in love with a man wearing a donkey's head, and Oberon, having watched the chaos he set in motion play out all night, decides it's time to fix it.

This scene is the moment the lovers wake - groggy and finally released from Oberon's meddling, unsure of what was real and what was a dream. We staged it in a hospital, with Oberon, Titania and Puck reimagined as doctors moving between beds, administering the "cure" as clinically as they'd caused the confusion. Britten's score for this moment is dark and haunting, and this setting brings that darkness into the visual language of the production too. By the end, the lovers are back in their right pairs, ready to be discharged into the real world.

This production was made as part of British Youth Opera's Serena Fenwick Programme, staged at Garsington Opera.