In the dead of night, a few hours after Mozart's death, the usual suspects are summoned to Mozart's room by Count Pergen, head of the secret police, who considered Mozart a potential revolutionary. Over the corpse, he interrogates them, trying to discover the true cause and significance of Mozart's demise.
When a selfless king learns of a beautiful princess in a neighboring kingdom who callously turns down every suitor with an insult, he tries his luck to no avail. So, he hatches a plot with her father in which the princess is married to him, in disguise as a beggar, so he can teach her lessons about humility and compassion.