From the same Sudermann story that inspired Murnau's Sunrise (1927). A villager is tempted by a sophisticated city woman and almost kills his wife in a boating accident.
Theodor Fontane's novel about a young girl who as a teenager marries a stiff bureaucrat, has a love affair out of boredom and loneliness and has to suffer the consequences years later should be well known.
In 1885, famous New York Metropolitan Opera singer Maddalena dall' Orto is scheduled to perform at a festival in the German residence of Ilmingen. It soon becomes obvious that she is non other than Magda von Schwartze, who left the town eight years ago against her father's wishes to become a singer.
