Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), called Fitzcarraldo by the local natives in the South American rubber capital where he lives, has a dream to create an exotic opera house so that the music of Caruso, and Pucinni, and Wagner can be brought to the wilderness. As he and his girlfriend Molly (Claudia Cardinale), the madam of the top brothel in the city, run to see a local opera performance, Fitzcarraldo manages to get the attention of a local financier Don Aquilino (José Lewgoy) and gets to create a plan to finance his dream. Using Molly's money Fitzcarraldo buys a boat and goes up the Amazon River to a jungle inhabited by Indians intent on killing any white men who enter. Becoming awed and subdued by Fitzcarraldo in his white suit and the music of Caruso, the Indians accept the blond entrepreneur as a god and do his bidding. At this juncture of the Amazon the river is separated from another of its legs by a few miles of mountains so the Indians are enlisted to drag the 180-ton ship from the river and over the mountains to the other leg in order to facilitate rubber transportation. During the task Indians are used as slaves, with the ultimate goal of building the opera house. As trees are felled and mountains are dynamited Fitzcarraldo struggles to realize his obsessive dream to bring opera music to the jungle.