"Silver lute", the choral society of the Vác Engine Works, led by Réz, the conductor, is preparing for its 25th anniversary. All the important members of the society, among them Seregély, a magician, are, at the same time, all "fathers" of Zsóka, daughter of a former colleague, who has been killed in an accident, and whom they then adopted.
Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka the one-ideaed Hungarian painter was thought to be crazy by his peers, but he eventually became a significant artist.
Set in the "Golden Era" of the wandering Hungarian theatre troupes. Mariska and Liliomfi fall in love without suspecting that Mariska's foster father, Professor Szilvay, is also Liliomfi's uncle. Soon the couple must contend with the professor's plan to make Liliomfi give up his "unrespectable" profession of acting by exposing the professor's hypocrisy, greed, and tyrannical selfishness.
