 It is a retelling of the ancient tale of Tristan and Isolde, the subject of many works in opera and ballet.Tristão Raposo, a nineteen-year-old black child of the Rio de Janeiro slums, spies Isabel Leme, an eighteen-year-old upper-class white girl, across the hot sands of Copacabana Beach, and presents her with a ring stolen from an American tourist.Their flight into marriage takes them from urban banality to the farthest reaches of Brazil’s wild west, where magic still rules.