Le piccole storie, subtitled Ai margini delle guerre, is a one-act chamber opera for young people by Lorenzo Ferrero set to an Italian-language libretto by Giuseppe Di Leva.
Some episodes are loosely based on Guy de Maupassant's 1884 short story "Le Lit 29" and on William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.
The work, a commission by the Teatro Comunale Modena, premiered there on 9 December 2007, directed by Francesco Frongia and conducted by Carlo Boccadoro.
On the streets, the political climate has changed after the speech Mark Antony delivered at the funeral ceremony and the hunting of Caesar's enemies begins.
With slow, deliberate gestures he pantomimes the action of dressing himself in traditional Japanese clothes and initiating the ancient ritual of seppuku.
From Irma he hears that she has been violated by the Prussians and that, as the only means of revenge and participation in the war, she decided to contaminate in return as many enemies as possible.