Ten-year-old Agata’s world is shaken at the sudden death of her mother. Left only with her egregious father, a working musician in Venice, her ailing grandmother sends her to the Ospedale della Pietà, a well-known orphanage. Agata auditions for the conservatory-style music school where music is both salvation and spectacle. Hidden behind ornate metal grates, adorned with poinsettias in their hair, the singers are veiled in mystery, their ethereal music drawing noble audiences. Just as Agata reaches the height of her musical journey, a marriage proposal from someone outside the audience tempts her with the promise of a new life --- a return to the old neighborhood she’s longed for and a home she barely remembers. Is her purpose rooted in the music that shaped her, or in the love that might free her?