Recounts the life and career of the Italian composer Cesare Pugni (1802-1870), who worked in Milan, Paris, and London prior to going to St. Petersburg. During the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s he produced the music for most of the new ballets at Her Majesty's Theatre in London and at the Bolshoi Theatre. He worked with the greatest ballet-masters of the 19th c., including Jules Perrot, Paul Taglioni, Arthur Saint-Léon, and Marius Petipa. He composed over 300 ballets, including Ondine (1843), La Esmeralda (1844) and The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862).