The drama begins with Romero's painting Mira qué bonita era... How beautiful she was.... Here we see a ‘wake', with mourners standing before an open coffin. The singer, wearing a cloak and hat — the symbol we have chosen to impersonate the painter whenever the story calls for it — is expressing Julio Romero's loss — the death of a young woman. ‘If only he could go to heaven to paint her!' A young man stands apart, clearly shunned by the other mourners. With accusing, percussive insistence they react to him and we come to realise that he has been somehow responsible for the death of the girl. That scene of death at the beginning of the show, is nevertheless, the end of our story — a dramatic conclusion to one episode in the life of Julio Romero.

We now go back in time and start unraveling the story, putting it into the social context of life in Córdoba during the early part of the century. We see some original film footage of Julio Romero painting in his studio and walking in the streets of Córdoba.

We enjoy a flamenco party — a juerga — in which flamencos and their aficionados come together for an outburst of song and dance. Julio Romero is present, and so we set the scene for his encounter with the Gypsy girl. Her grace and beauty cause him to proclaim his passionate desire that she sits for him, whatever the cost.

At the party, he is accompanied by a woman who comes from a higher, more fashionable stratum of society. She too is captivated by flamenco and by the Gypsy girl. She wishes to learn to dance and so begins a relationship between the two women.

Later, while herself sitting for the painter, she, the Dama, falls into a reverie: she finds herself moving as if possessed by the power of the Gypsy girl's dance.

The first half closes with the Easter Procession, reminiscent of Romero's La Saeta, a painting that strikes us for its poignant social message.

After hours': prostitutes dance sensually and provocatively. The painter enters with La Dama. On seeing Romero the women turn their attention to him. He is unmoved by their advances but nonetheless captivated by the scene. Meanwhile, the Dama is infected by the mood of seduction. After watching vicariously for some moments, she also starts dancing, and the prostitutes now become, as it were, a chorus to her attempts to seduce Romero. He remains untouched and rejects her advances.

Juanillo, El Chocolatero, sings the virtues of women, such as La Musa Gitana, to his friend Julio Romero. The painter is compelled to follow his artistic passion and in the next scene she poses for him.

The scene of happy, every day life in Córdoba is abruptly shattered by the presence of Julio Romero's latest work — Naranjas y Limones. The Novio, seeing his girl displayed naked, goes into a mood of despair and unstoppable fury; eventually he kills the woman he loves.

There the story ends for the characters. The mantle of the painter then passes onto the shoulders of the young man and we are left wondering who really killed the Musa. The Novio may have struck the blow, but the painter, through his vanity, has destroyed both his loves, ‘sacred and profane'; they will for ever more elude his grasp.