The elderly aristocrat Alba d'Oltrevita longs for her lost youth and makes a pact with the devil: if she renounces love, Mephisto will grant her eternal beauty. Two brothers court Alba. She contemptuously rejects the passionate Sergio; she wants Tristano, Sergio's brother. Tragedy strikes when Sergio shoots himself and Alba feels remorse and love for the first time. She is willing to accept mortality in return. Veiled as Tristano's bride, Alba dances towards death.

In the supporting programme, we are showing two short films by American director Dudley Murphy. In ‘Soul of the Cypress’, a variation on the Orpheus myth, the protagonist falls in love with a forest nymph whose soul dwells in an old tree and throws himself into the sea to become immortal and spend eternity with her. In the visual symphony ‘Danse Macabre’, youth (played by ballet dancer Adolph Blom) and love (Ruth Page) try to escape death (Olin Howland) during the plague in Spain.