Isabella Ducrot

To sleep in the beloved’s embrace, close to ’o sciato suio, feeling her sweet breathing, is, in Naples, like entering a kind of paradise far from all earthly tribulation−an irresistible call to which lovers surrender in the intimacy between sleeping and dreaming. This liminal condition−suonno, in Neapolitan, meaning both sonno (sleep) and sogno (dream)−recurs across the many, many songs examined by Isabella Ducrot who, perhaps the first to do so, has noticed a singular fact: these songs never allude to the call of the senses. In a nocturnal serenade, rather than crying out ti amo (“I love you”) the lover will say te voglio bbene (“I wish you well”), an expression that originates in a blessed moment when a defenceless being is entrusted to another who cares deeply for their wellbeing.