Narrated by Neil.   The below info is taken from www.bbc.co.uk/works/s3/venice/index.shtml  Visit the link for more details.

A Death in Venice is the story of a crime - the deliberate burning-down of La Fenice - "the most beautiful opera house in the world".

Set against La Fenice's glorious and unique historical background, the film tells the inside story of what happened on the night of January 29, 1996 - the events leading up to the fire, the way it started, and how it threatened the entire city of Venice. It also looks at the plight of the homeless opera company and the plans to exactly rebuild the theatre.

We meet the men in charge of the investigation and unravel a tale of sinister forces. Was it the result of a Mafia vendetta? Was it a bungled attempt to cover up the incompetence of building contractors working on the theatre at the time?

The film talks about the tragedy with some of the people who have built their lives around the splendour of La Fenice: Franco Zeffirelli, the film-maker and opera director, Dame Joan Sutherland, the world renowned opera singer, who held her Italian debut at the theatre, and La Fenice Orchestra violinist Lucio Sparta, who visits the ruins of the theatre for the first time since the fire. It questions those leading the investigation including Venice's charismatic fire chief - Alfio Pini, the chief prosecutor - Felice Casson, who will present his findings in the summer of 1997, and Dr Georgio Cecchetti, the only local journalist in Venice willing to reveal the inside story of what is really going on.

A Death in Venice unravels a web of intrigue and incompetence that helps explain how such a catastrophe could have happened and why a cultural monumnet was also the most attractive target for organised crime in a society like Italy. We hear from the Mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, and urbane Superintendent Gianfranco Pontel and we disclose that both men are currently being investigated by the prosecutors office in connection with the fire. Even though there is no doubt about the cause - arson - questions are being asked about how easily it happened and fingers are being pointed in accusations of negligence.

For more than 200 years, Gran Teatro La Fenice was one of the world's leading opera houses: in 1835, it was the venue for the premiere of La Traviata; 100 years later, Benjamin Britten's The Turn Of The Screw was given its premiere at La Fenice. Today only four precariously-balanced walls remain and the beautiful rococo interior is a heap of rubble behind a blackened facade.

The Phoenix (as La Fenice is translated) will not rise again from the ashes until the turn of the millennium. In the meantime, the orchestra and chorus play to a half-empty house in a massive surreal tent that has been erected in the middle of an industrial zone in the port of Venice.

The film presents remarkable footage of the fire and its aftermath, scenes of the theatre's magnificent former glory and extracts from famous operas performed over its illustrious history. We reconstruct the night of the fire through first-hand eye witnesses, and using computers, present an intriguing photographic sequence showing how the fire started and how it spread. This provides clear evidence that the cause was indeed arson and suggests that there might have been not one but two seperate fires.

Set against an unforgettable backdrop of palazzos and canals, A Death in Venice is a tribute to what was quite simply one of the most important cultural monuments in the world.