Under the french revolution, the poet Andrea Chénier and the servant Carlo Gérard both love the young aristocrat Maddalena and the drama increases as Gérard Chénier is dangerously jealous.

The poet Andrea Chénier and the servant Carlo Gérard both love the young and beautiful aristocrat Maddalena. When Maddalena loses everything in the French Revolution, Chénier offers her protection, and so incites the envy of Gérard, now a powerful and scary official. Chénier is arrested during the Terror. Gérard, spurred by his jealousy, condemns him. Maddalena makes a desperate appeal, and Gérard tries, too late, to defend Chénier. Gérard helps Maddalena to join Chénier in prison, and the lovers face the guillotine together.—Niels Ulrik Basse