A veteran sea captain abducts his niece for what he believes is his last chance at love. As the sad demon of the ocean Klabautermanden watches the passing of doomed ships, the niece awakens in her uncle's cabin.
Paris 1900. Sharing a house in the Bohemian District are Roberto, a fledgling Musician, who is composing an Opera with his friend the poet Victor Duval; and the beautiful Cossette, daughter of a retired tenor, who goes up and down the stairs, taking advantage of Roberto's music to train her voice.
In all of his work, Bussotti makes frequent reference to the body, to sexuality. This to remind musicians — especially classically trained ones — that they are not body-less angels, that they are not just their musical thoughts, that they are still, in the last analysis, flesh and bones.
In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend.