A choreographer casts an unknown to dance the role of Carmen in a new ballet based on Bizet. They have an affair. She proves incapable of fidelity to both her imprisoned husband and her new lover. This is a musical with a difference, a variant on the life-mirrors-art theme, dance rehearsals mingling with sexual encounters, real fights with choreographed ones, and Bizet's music using the voices of singers such as Regina Resnik and Mario Del Monaco.