For Anna Maria, paradise lies with Jesus, and she devotes her time to door-to-door missionary work. One day after years of absence, her husband, an Egyptian Muslim confined to a wheelchair, comes home—and soon prayers are replaced by fighting.

Part three of the trilogy, centred on the Swiss tenor August Schram, is now located in an opera house during a running performance of Donizetti's humorous melodrama "L'elisir d'amore" and furnished with a memorable cast of characters.