Description

In the mountain village of Hochstoff, the wealthy Stromminger is celebrating his seventieth birthday. The hunter Giuseppe Hagenbach bursts in on the celebrations, boasting that he has just killed a bear. Stromminger quarrels with the self-confident young man and the two come to blows. The two men can only be separated by Stromminger’s daughter Wally. This permanently bewilders Hagenbach because no woman has ever bested him in a physical contest before. Wally is strong and courageous and entirely without feminine vanity: she is Stromminger’s only child and was raised like a boy, though without love. Men find her unsettling; only Vincenzo Gellner loves her. He knows that Wally is secretly in love with Hagenbach and tells his friend Stromminger so. The furious father demands that his daughter either marry Gellner or leave his household. Accompanied by her only friend, the young zither player Walter, Wally escapes into the mountains. Some time later her father dies and she returns to enjoy her freedom as a wealthy and beautiful woman. However, she keeps all her admirers at arm’s length. At a festival she meets Hagenbach again. Gellner, still no nearer winning Wally over, arouses her jealousy when Hagenbach chats familiarly with Afra, the landlady of the inn. Wally then bullies Afra, so Hagenbach, wishing to avenge his lady friend, hints to Wally during the traditional kissing dance that he loves her and steals a kiss. When the dance ends Wally sees that everyone is laughing at her, and she furiously realises that she has been tricked. In the face of this humiliation she promises Gellner that she will marry him if he kills Hagenbach. Alone at home Wally regrets her promise, but that very night Gellner pushes his rival into a ravine. Hagenbach wanted to come and see Wally and ask for her forgiveness because during the dance he really did fall in love with her. When Gellner reports the murder to her Wally is horrified. However, she is able to rescue the unconscious Hagenbach from the ravine. She then leaves her entire fortune to Afra and goes into the mountains alone to do penance. When Hagenbach is well again he goes to Wally to declare his love and even forgives her attempt to have him killed. But the couple is not destined to share a life together: Hagenbach is swept away by an avalanche and Wally plunges into the abyss after him.