Violinist, composer and conductor, living through two world wars, caught between east and west, capitalism and communism: The remarkable and glittering life of German artist Paul Dessau is more than a good story – it cries out for the medium of film…

The setting of the opera Cavalleria Rusticana by the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni (based on the novella of the same name by Giovanni Verga), is regarded as the birth of a new style in Italian opera, "verismo", which gained great popularity…