Wozzeck, a lowly soldier, astounds his Captain with a Biblical defense of his common-law marriage to Marie and of their illegitimate young son. Mentally unstable, Wozzeck hallucinates about the menace of a setting sun. To help support his family, he allows himself to be the guinea pig in a doctor’s unorthodox experiments. Marie meanwhile has been flirting with a dashing Drum Major whom she invites to seduce her.

Wozzeck gives Marie his wages, which makes her feel guilty about having accepted earrings from the Drum Major. The Captain and the Doctor taunt Wozzeck about Marie’s infidelity. When Wozzeck starts to strike Marie, she says she would rather have a knife in her breast than his hand upon her. Later he is further enraged when he spies Marie and the Drum Major passionately embracing in a lurid waltz. In the barracks, Wozzeck prays for deliverance from temptation. The Drum Major comes in boasting of his conquest of Marie. Wozzeck tries to attack him but is soundly beaten.

Marie reads to her child from the Bible and prays for mercy. At dusk Wozzeck leads Marie along a forest path near a pond. The sight of the moon rising blood-red goads him into stabbing Marie. Later Wozzeck searches the pond for the bloody knife and he drowns. In front of Marie’s house, her son rides a hobbyhorse. Other children run in with news that his mother is dead.