Plot

Thirty years ago Bolshoi Orchestra conductor Andreï Filipov was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Now a lowly janitor, an opportunity arises to gather his old musicians to go and pose as the official Bolshoi orchestra in Paris.

Thirty years ago, Andrei Simoniovich Filipov, the renowned conductor of the Bolshoi orchestra, was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Now a mere cleaning man at the Bolshoi, he learns by accident that the Châtelet Theater in Paris invites the Bolshoi orchestra to play there. He decides to gather together his former musicians and to perform in Paris in the place of the current Bolshoi orchestra. As a solo violin player to accompany his old Jewish or Gypsy musicians he wants Anne-Marie Jacquet, a young virtuoso. If they all overcome the hardships ahead this very special concert will be a triumph.—Guy Bellinger

In Moscow, the former conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra Andrey Simonovich Filipov is presently the janitor of the theater. Andrey felt in disgrace with the Communist Party thirty years ago for protecting the Jewish musicians and was no longer allowed to conduct an orchestra. One night, Andrey reads a just-received fax while cleaning the office of the Bolshoi's director Leonid Vinichenko and he hides the document. He learns that the Châtelet Theater in Paris has just invited the Bolshoi Orchestra to perform a concert in Paris within two weeks. Andrey shows the fax to his friend and musician Aleksandr 'Sasha' Abramovich Grosman that drives an ambulance and he decides to reunite fifty-five former musicians of Bolshoi to travel to Paris and perform The Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He invites the Communist leader and former KGB Ivan Gavrilov to manage the orchestra and he requests the solo of the prominent musician Anne-Marie Jacquet and to stay in Paris for three days. When they arrive in Paris, Andrey meets Anne-Marie while the musicians wander in the city, partying and raising money. The unprofessionalism of the Russian musicians forces Anne-Marie to call off the concert; but Sasha convinces her to come to the theater. Meanwhile Andrey grieves the incident with the violinist Lea thirty years ago and hides a secret from Anne-Marie. What is the connection between Andrey and Anne-Marie?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil