An impresario presents a performance of his commedia dell'arte troupe. The performance is interrupted when a man dressed in red, wearing a frightening mask and brandishing a whip, bursts in and scatters the players. The impresario flees as the masked stranger locks all seven players in a large cupboard. To the sounds of protest emanating from the cupboard, the masked man declares the death of the masks and their irrelevance to real life. He removes his own mask and costume and reveals himself to be Orpheus, exchanging the whip for his traditional lyre. Orpheus then introduces seven new characters who will be better representatives of the human condition (and who will become the main characters of Part II, Sette canzoni). They file silently onto and off the stage as the commedia dell'arte players protest from the cupboard that they will starve to death. Arlecchino manages to escape from the cupboard exclaiming, "It will never be true that Arlecchino will die of hunger" ("Non sarà mai vero che Arlecchino muoia di fame"). The curtain falls as Arlecchino scampers off-stage.
