VERSE OF FORTUNE focuses on aspects of the life and work of French symbolist poet, Charles Baudelaire. Spanning the years from 1842, when he was a spendthrift bon vivant and chivalrous Dandy, to 1867, the year of his death, when he had become dissipated and defeated by illness and chronic debt, the libretto focuses on his twenty-year relationship with his muse, Jeanne Duval. She is a woman of color from Haiti, and theirs is a tempestuous union fraught with passion, love and hostility. Still, Charles reamins in love with, and inspired by, Jeanne to the end.

Complicating matters is the Oedipal tug-of-war between Charles and his mother, Mme Aupick. She fails to understand her son until the moment he dies in her arms. She and Charles' stepfather, whom he detested, are responsible for denying him access to his inheritance, and forcing him to live hand to mouth on a monthly stipend - an attempt to cure him of his excessive spending. This draconian sentence, nevertheless, strengthens Charles belief that there must be a special "Celestial Nest" waiting for artists as recompense for the hardships they endure on earth. His trial for Obscenity upon the publication of his opus magnum, Les Fleurs du Mal, in 1857, is yet another nail in his coffin. Stoically, he perseveres.

Verse of Fortune ultimately gives Charles his wish, and after his death he is welcomed in a heavenly salon where those who loved him, and pre-deceased him, have been awaiting his arrival. Only one person is missing. He confides that she is the one throughout his life, for better or worse, whom he adored unconditionally. His words have power, and Jeanne materializes, as glamorous and beautiful as when he first met her. They have a second chance at happiness.