Death in VeniceDeath in Venice

Composer Gustav von Aschenbach takes a convalescent holiday at the Venice Lido after the death of his child and the disastrous reception of his new compositions. Bored, he indulges an idle, whimsical, faintly epicurean interest in a beautiful boy sporting on the beach. The boy represents an ideal of perfect physical beauty; his youth and naturalness reproach Aschenbach's vanity and creative sterility. The onset of a deadly pestilence resolves his infatuation, as corruption eventually compromises all ideals.