Gracile and light as a bird, an apparition, dressed in diaphanous white veils, appears on the rooftops of the Opéra Garnier, with a white dove as her companion. A voice calls her to the stage. Another voice, that of Violette Verdy, a dance teacher, addresses her with the admiration of the one whose expectations have been met. This is how we spectators learn that the floating creature is none other than Monique Loudières, one of the Etoile dancers of the Paris Opera, and Violette's former pupil. The ghost then takes flesh, but only to some extent such is the way Monique Loudières defies gravity.