Act I. The home of _Iris_ near the city. The hour is before dawn. The

music depicts the passage from night into day. It rises to a crashing climax--the instrumentation including tamtams, cymbals, drums, and bells--while voices reiterate, "Calore! Luce! Amor!" (Warmth! Light! Love!). In warmth and light there are love and life. A naturalistic philosophy, to which this opening gives the key, runs through "Iris."

Fujiyama glows in the early morning light, as _Iris_, who loves only her blind father, comes to the door of her cottage. She has dreamed that monsters sought to injure her doll, asleep under a rosebush. With the coming of the sun the monsters have fled. _Mousmés_ come to the bank of the stream and sing prettily over their work.

_Iris_ is young and beautiful. She is desired by _Osaka_, a wealthy rake. _Kyoto_, keeper of a questionable resort, plots to obtain her for him. He comes to her cottage with a marionette show. While _Iris_ is intent upon the performance, three geisha girls, representing Beauty, Death, and the Vampire, dance about her. They conceal her from view by spreading their skirts. She is seized and carried off. _Osaka_, by leaving money for the blind old father, makes the abduction legal. When _Il Cieco_ returns, he is led to believe that his daughter has gone voluntarily to the Yoshiwara. In a rage he starts out to find her.