The Dreaming Season is an arrangement and revision of an aria from the opera Buffa, which tells the story of a struggling American opera company performing an 18th-century Italian opera entitled La pastorella (The Shepherdess). In the first scene of Act III, Arthur, the director, sings about his growing identification with the character of the Prince, and his increasing infatuation with Anna, the soprano who plays the title role of La pastorella, in an aria that blurs past and present.