Turns out, she became an Opera star in Paris after performing for Napoleon III (Guy Bates Post) with the tutelage and guidance of a famous voice teacher (John Barrymore). After her successful breakout performance, Barrymore proposes to MacDonald. She accepts, not out of love, but more out of practicality, and soon finds she's made a mistake when she meets someone more her age and style, another singer (Nelson Eddy).
She stays true to Barrymore, however, until eventually running into Eddy again, this time as co-star of a big show they're to appear in together. Their chemistry is so obvious that it brings down the house but also tips Barrymore off and leads to the tragic ending.
What's so weird about that, you ask? Well, as the movie unfolds it becomes increasingly clear the movie itself is just a clothesline to hang a series of fully played-out and uninterrupted opera performances on. So it's not like a conventional musical where the songs move the plot along. It's more of a concert film with plot elements sprinkled between lengthy opera performances. MacDonald and Eddy are obviously talented vocalists but most of the songs are not in English, and there aren't any subtitles, so you really have to be an opera buff to enjoy it.
There is one more traditional Hollywood musical interlude in the middle of the picture in which Eddy sings "Will You Remember" to MacDonald in a park under a tree, and that scene works within the context of the movie. But most of the rest of the musical scenes bring the flick to a screeching halt. That's a shame because there is some beautiful cinematography and set design to be seen along the way, and the ending, where the two lovers are reunited in death, is very beautiful.
One other weird thing, and this might be considered a spoiler, so stop reading if you care about that kind of stuff. So, the framing story where MacDonald is an old woman and is inspired to reflect on her life after witnessing a young lover's quarrel? The young woman lover wants to go off on a trip to become a famous Opera star. The young man lover wants her to stay so he can marry her and start a family. After hearing MacDonald's tale of an unhappy marriage and being kept away from the man she truly loves, the young woman lover comes to the conclusion that she should give up her career and stay behind and devote herself to her man.
This might fit the popular ideals of the time, but that's not what I'd get out of MacDonald's story at all! Yes, on a literal level, her devotion to her opera career is what led her to marry the wrong dude and kept her away from the right dude. But, on a more metaphorical level, she was kept away from the thing she truly loved just for a man. And that's what's going to happen to this young couple: the woman will be kept away from her true love (opera) so she can marry some guy!
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