The young and beautiful light skinned mulatta, Cecilia Valdés, is the illegitimate daughter of powerful land magnate and slave trader, Cándido de Gamboa.
There are the elite social circles of Spanish-born and creole whites; the growing number of mulattos, of which Cecilia is one, and the blacks: some slaves, some freed men.
The libretto was by Agustin Rodríguez and José Sánchez-Arcilla, based on the novel Cecilia Valdés, o la Loma del Angel by Cirilo Villaverde.
In Villaverde's novel (completed in 1882), the melodramatic plot serves as a background for social life in Cuba, with slavery, injustice, crises and personal tragedies, following colorful presentation in detailed characterization and description, even to the point that the plot itself loses its pace at times, long before reaching its climax, as if the author had lost interest in his story and wanted to finish it as fast as possible.
In Roig's zarzuela, however, dramatic element is more exposed, more consistent and in swift action, presented as an interesting unrolling story pointing toward inevitable climax, which shows great talent and theatrical experience on the part of the composer, the piece containing mixture of traditional Cuban music, with all its genres, forms and vivid rhythms and dances, interlaced in good balance with predominantly romantic in style music of the Western tradition, particularly in melody and orchestration.