This documentary, filmed in Bohemia, uncovers the amazing story of Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884), the great Czech composer of the operas Dalibor and The Bartered Bride and of the epic orchestral suite Ma Vlast ('My Country'). It reveals how, extraordinarily, he wrote some of his most beautiful music during the last decade of his life when he was completely deaf and why he ended his life in a Prague mental asylum and was given a State funeral...an occasion which was marked as a day of national mourning throughout Bohemia. The underlying theme of the film is of how an artist can successfully overcome a profound disability and find worldwide recognition.