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.
Four graduates of an industrial design school team up and form a small business. The protagonist is so excited by the venture that she turns down the proposal of her dashing instructor. Time passes and her three partners lose interest in the business for different reasons. This leaves the heroine who has a change of heart and decides to forgo the business and marry the instructor after all.
As the title "The Queen's Heart" suggests, this early German black and white version of Mary Queen of Scott's eventful reign and death focuses on her emotional perception rather lyrically, with some songs, mainly by her.
Karl Kramer is a waiter in a beach hotel on the Baltic Sea. But he has completely different plans in mind for the future. Before he marries Grete Wernicke, the daughter of the hotel manager, he wants to have enough money himself.
Gabriele Bordersen, a woman from a good home, wants to see what real life is like among the common folk. With her stewardess Fanny Flint and the tour guide Simikry, she goes off to visit a sailors' bar. Fanny and Gabriele change clothes, which allows the stewardess to introduce herself as a fine lady. When Gabriele asks Fanny to leave with her, Fanny begs her to give her an hour more out of fear of embarrassment. Gabriele, however, is thrown out of the bar by the owner without money and papers; is picked up by the cops; and suffers a nervous breakdown, leading to her being sent to a hospital. No one believes in the slightest that she's really Gabriele Brodersen.
1865. Katharina goes to a ball in Moscow. There she meets again Tchaikowsky, her first and only love. The young, who is now married to wealthy Michael Iwanowitsch Murakin, a man she does not love, has not forgotten Piotr Illich, the (not yet) famous composer. Both are still in love with each other but Piotr is engaged to Nastassia, a dancer, while for her part Katharina cannot leave her husband. Tchaikowky's first love then decides to sacrifice her happiness to the success of the composer, sponsoring him in secret. Something Piotr will learn only years after. When Katharina finds herself free at last it is too late: Tchaikowsky is dying of cholera and she only has time to close his eyes.
A man comes into money unexpectatly. That's when the trouble starts.
In Vienna, during the 1848 Revolution, opera singer Antonia Corvelli marries Detlev von Blossin, a rich landowner. But, as she refuses to give up her career, her infuriated husband returns to Pomerania without her. After falling into the clutches of the cruel and wicked count Stefan Oginski, whose lover she unfortunately becomes, Antonia has no other choice but to pass for dead in order to escape him. She then returns to Italy where she joins small theater companies under various aliases. Until one day she is overtaken by her fate...
