Scene 1

Northern Caucasus, Kuban. Autumn. The collective farm The Bright Stream has completed its harvesting and autumn sowing. Artists from the capital: a ballerina, a ballet dancer and an accordion-player have been invited for the harvest festival. The collective farm activist Gavrilych and the merry Galya with her friends are ready to welcome the brigade of artists at the railway station. The young agronomist Pyotr with his wife Zina and elderly dacha-dweller with his spouse are also among the welcoming throng.

As the collective-farm workers and newly arrived artists are leaving the railway platform, the agronomist's wife recognizes the ballerina who is her former schoolmate and with whom she has studied dancing together. What a pleasure! What a meeting!

Zina tries to prove to her former colleague that, living in the country, she has not forgotten her previous skills. Pyotr appears who obviously has no idea about his wife's artistic past. He begins to court the ballerina who seems to him very special and thus very desirable. Zina's low self-esteem grows into a tacit jealousy.

Scene 2

Everyone is joyfully preparing for tomorrow's harvest festival, the artists distribute presents to the best workers of the collective farm. Gavrilych receives a gramophone and the best milkmaid a gorgeous silk dress.

Quality inspectors manifest their jollity by breaking into a gay dance and dacha-dwellers entertain everyone with steps of an old-fashioned dance.

The performance of an amateur group organized by Zina, and the milkmaid's dance with the hot-headed tractor driver follows. Gavrilych winds up his gramophone and asks the city guests to demonstrate their talents. Collective-farm workers admire the virtuosity of the performance by the ballerina and the ballet dancer, while the dacha-dwellers are taken by the physical beauty of the young dancers. Zina continues to feel pangs of jealousy, as Pyotr's interest in the city artist becomes more and more evident. The old dacha-dweller makes a proposal to the ballerina for a rendezvous at night, the dacha-dweller's wife, too, makes similar plans and attempts to charm the ballet dancer. The ballerina goes off together with Pyotr, and then returns to Zina. She assures her that there are no grounds for jealousy and suggests that Zina tell the people that she, too, used to be a dancer to increase her attraction in the eyes of her husband.
Zina agrees with her friend's spontaneous idea to play a joke on Pyotr and the dacha-dwellers family. The ballerina, dressed in a male costume, decides to go and meet the dacha-dweller's wife so that the disguised Zina at the same time could teach her light-minded husband a lesson. The ballet dancer, too, eventually agrees to be made up as a ballerina and make fun of the old dacha-dweller appearing in the image of Sylphide.

ACT II

Scene 3

The warmth of a southern night is full of piercing sensuality, gnats are hunting people, and people are chasing each other. The tractor-driver Kolya wants to participate in the plot devised by the ballerina, the ballet dancer and Zina, and puts on a dog skin: he will accompany Galya who is meeting the accordion-player. The role of the dog appears to suit the tractor driver very well. He protects Galya so enthusiastically from the accordion-player's approaches that the city musician finally has to accept the rules of the game and joins the small group of conspirators.

The dacha-dweller who has escaped from his domineering wife enters and does his best to look manly. He is festooned with a gun. In the darkness he catches sight of his dream vision and becomes so enchanted by the graceful Sylphide that doesn't even notice the incongruity between female outlines and the male content behind it.
The dacha-dweller's wife, who has come to the secret rendezvous in ballet shoes, accidentally becomes witness to her husband's flirting. This scene does not grow into a scandal as the hurt lady is frightened by the tractor-driver who, still in his dog skin, is riding a bicycle. The ballerina dressed in her partner's costume helps the old lady to recover, and takes great pleasure in fooling the lady languishing in romantic illusions.

Enter Pyotr, who is waiting for the ballerina, but, unaware of the carefully laid trap, he is met by the perfectly disguised Zina. The agronomist fails to recognize his wife.

The old dacha-dweller is eager to get to know his Sylphide closer, but the false ballet dancer tries to rescue the latter in this delicate situation, by playing out a scene of a hurt lover, and demands satisfaction.

The dacha-dweller is afraid of the duel and for a moment believes the comic duel is real: he thinks that he has fired a shot while in fact it is a noise made by banging a bucket. Sylphide theatrically falls to the ground. The dacha-dwellers, horrified, flee from the scene of the accident. The ballet dancer, tired of the difficult role of Sylphide, gets to his feet fit and healthy. A moment later both dacha-dwellers return and finally realize that they have become victims of the plotters' games.

Scene 4

Morning has set in. The field workers gather in a meadow to enjoy the performance of the city artists at their harvest festival.

The young agronomist is especially sharp-eyed. In the ballerina's performance he hopes to relive the echoes of last night's romantic experience. To his surprise, instead of one dancer he sees two ballerinas, their faces hidden by masks. At the end of their vigorous dance theu reveal their faces.

The confused Pyotr begs for forgiveness in front of all the workers. He has finally come to understand that Zina's universal personality combines the virtues of the agronomist's wife with the descreet charm of a ballerina. Merriment all around.