During the great war, Flora Bertuccioli, a diva no more young than the café-chantant on the avenue of sunset and at risk of being evicted from her house in Turin, received the offer to sing for the soldiers engaged at the front. On her arrival she is welcomed by the young soldier, Tonino, who along with three other soldiers composes the ramshackle orchestra charged with accompanying her songs. When she gets on the stage and realizes that his audience is made of young wounded and mutilated soldiers, she is assaulted by indignation and emotion: she refuses to sing the military march, she tears off the Tricolor and intones 'O surdato' nnammurato by Aniello Califano . The show, however, is interrupted by a bombing and everyone tries to save themselves. The next morning she and Tonino, climbed on the commander's car, believe they are now safe, but at that moment an enemy plane passes over them. She shields the young Tonino with his body and dies machine-gunned.