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The story centers around the dying moments of the seventeenth-century Mexican poetess and nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. It opens with Sor Juana on her deathbed, sick and with the plague. She is being cared for by two other nuns, Sor Isabel and Sor Rosa, while an offstage chorus chants the Requiem. Dying Juana recalls her past life and the people who played a part in it, including her patroness, Maria Luisa, the Countess of Parades and wife of the Spanish Viceroy; her father confessor; Padre Antonia Nuñez de Miranda; Archbishop Seijas; and Sor Andrea, the prioress of her convent. Each of the nine scenes is introduced by a different section of the Gregorian Requiem.
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