Scene 1 The audience at the Hotel Bourgogne anticipate a performance by the famous actor Montfleury.
Christian de Neuvilette, a handsome new recruit in the Gascon Guards, points out to his drunken friend, Lignière, a woman in one of the boxes with whom he is in love.
Christian laments that he is too stupid and coarse to win the heart of such a refined woman.
The baker-poet Rageneau and the soldier Le Bret enter looking for one of the Gascon Guards, Cyrano de Bergerac, who has banned Montfleury from performing for a month.
They describe Cyrano as being eloquent and brave, but as being much ridiculed because of his abnormally large nose, a subject on which he is extremely sensitive.
The performance commences, but in the middle of it Cyrano chases Montfleury offstage and pays off the theater manager.
Scene 2 Cyrano arrives at the bakery, eagerly anticipating his meeting with Roxane.
Christian later arrives, and tells Cyrano that he no longer needs his services, and that he can win Roxane on his own.
Roxane makes Cyrano promise that Christian write to her every single day.
Christian notices a mark on the letter, and Cyrano replies that it is one of his tears, as dying is not so terrible as never seeing Roxane again.
Just as Cyrano is about to do so, Le Bret and Carbon enter carrying the mortally wounded Christian.
Scene 2 Fifteen years later, Roxane lives at a convent, mourning the loss of Christian.
Cyrano comes to visit her, and tell her news, and Roxane notices blood on his head.
Before he dies, Cyrano requests he read Christian's farewell letter to her one last time.