Director Mike Figgis, produces a film inspired by Donizetti's famous opera Lucrezia Borgia. Figgis simultaneously directed an on stage opera of Donizetti's classic and a dark, erotic, melancholic film version. Figgis' film follows the early years preceding the events depicted in Donizetti's classic opera narrative. Examining the incest and jealousy between Lucrezia Borgia, her brother Cesare, her servant Calderon and her father the Pope.