Distant, tireless, turbulent. Three adjectives that sum up Giuseppe Verdi. Rejected by the Milan Conservatory—the same one that now bears his name—he learned his 'art' by every morning watching rehearsals at La Scala. The documentary tells the story of the 'genius', stopping in places that marked his life and, of course, his music: the humble home in Busseto, the villa Sant'Agata, where he composed Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, the great Italian opera houses, and then London, Paris, to the room of the Grand Hotel et de Milan where he died at the dawn of a new century.