The first scene begins with the Prelude. It is before dawn and Yápac's miners are heading to work. A male choir is performing a mournful song "En la nieve de las cumbres" ("On the Snow of the Peaks"). At the end of the song some miners fall behind while listening to the shepherd playing the quena (traditional flute of the Andes); they watch him disappear among the clouds that surround the peaks with admiration, and they envy his freedom. Frank is a young miner who does not accept the mine owners' abuse. "Something tells me that life isn't this way", Frank says, but the other miners accuse him of being ungrateful to the patrones.