Act I
The villagers are preparing for an important celebration. Wealthy organiser Jadwiga laments that her daughter Ulana is involved with Manru, a Gypsy, a foreigner both culturally and racially, which to her and the whole village is an unforgivable crime. Hatred of the Other is stronger than parental love, and the wayward daughter additionally arouses her anger by the very fact of disobedience.
Jadwiga is further incited to anger by Urok, a shady character who serves as the village’s supplier of mind-changing substances and herbs. He appears to encourage the mother to show mercy, but having loved Ulana for a long time himself, he cannot stand the thought of her love for the Gypsy and their happy relationship which has resulted in the birth of a child. A lonely and bitter man, his heart is torn between hatred towards Manru and love for Ulana. When the latter arrives to ask her mother to help ease the poverty she suffers with her child, Urok torments the woman he desires with a vision of the misfortunes that will befall her for being with a foreigner. However, he gives in to her pleas, supported by the hope that his desire might be satisfied.
Keen to obtain herbs that would restore the passion which kept the Gypsy drawn to her body, Ulana doesn’t shatter Urok’s hopes. The mother demands that her daughter abandon Manru and return to her family home with her child, or else she must leave forever. Ulana’s love is unwavering and she chooses misfortune at her husband’s side. Enraged by this impudence, the community is roused to greater aggression against the ‘traitor’, augmented by the local men’s widespread desire for the lovely ‘Gypsy wench’, as they refer to her contemptuously. Manru comes to his sweetheart’s rescue and, prepared to lay down his life for her, saves her from the rabble. Shielded by Jadwiga, they escape to their hut beyond the village.
Act II
Ulana is taking care of the child while Manru is busy with his scrap metal. They are plagued by poverty and discouraged by a life with no prospects and no sense of security. It is impossible to go on like this much longer, and recalling their former passion fails to improve the mood. Manru feels that the price he is paying for abandoning a world in which he was free and important is too high.
The couple is visited by Urok, who keeps hanging around his beloved Ulana. Manru tolerates him since he is the only person in the surrounding world without any xenophobic hatred towards him. The Gypsy doesn’t know that the visitor has brought Ulana’s promised potion to rekindle her husband’s desire for her.
Suddenly, violin music starts playing, and it has a magical influence on Manru’s heart, evoking memories from his past life when he loved the Gypsy beauty Aza. His old friend Jagu has come, on a mission to bring Manru back to the Gypsy community. Urok fully supports this mission, hoping to get Ulana for himself. But Manru is faithful to her and turns down Jagu’s proposal that he come back to rule over the Gypsies and abandon the rural backwater. Happy, Ulana gives her husband the potion brought by Urok, but its effect is illusory and temporary. Manru flees from the hut, leaving behind his wife and the child, who mean less to him than his personal freedom.
Act III
The Gypsies draw near. Aza, happy that her beloved Manru has been found, cannot stand the fact that Gypsy chief Oros and most of the others treat Manru like a traitor and don’t want to take him in. He, too, cannot decide if he can really abandon his wife and child to start the new life with which Aza tries to tempt him. Jagu is here again with the trusty violin player; he convinces the Gypsies to accept Manru, and Manru to stay with Aza after all. To make this work, he has to get rid of Oros and replace him as the chief of this community of itinerant lovers of freedom.
Since power can seldom be seized without bloodshed, Manru’s new life is tainted with violence from the outset. They leave for the unknown that could become their heaven or their hell. Ulana arrives, searching for her beloved husband. She asks Urok to get him back for her, but it is too late. When the devastated girl wants to take her own life, Urok brings her young son to her, saving them both from doom and his own soul from all-powerful evil.