Beim Schlafengehen
performed by Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Jessye Norman; composed by Richard Strauss

The plot focuses on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Among them are Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker preparing an award party for her AIDS-stricken long-time friend and poet, Richard in 2001; Laura Brown, a pregnant 1950s California housewife with a young boy and an unhappy marriage; and Virginia Woolf herself in 1920s England, who is struggling with depression and mental illness whilst trying to write her novel.