WAGNER

NO LOVE ALLOWED

(Das Liebesverbot)

Pandemonium! Riot! Bedlam! A war on vice has been declared by some-one who obviously means business and has put up the resources to back it. And in a most unlikely place -- the sun-drenched, pleasure loving land of Sicily. Here, in the outskirts of Palermo, the storm troopers are on the move -- evidently the work of Frederick, the new viceroy, a stern moralist from the North, a German, whose lofty ideals and uncompromising standards have made such an impression on the kindly if over indulgent king of Sicily that he has entrusted his kingdom into the energetic hands of the newcomer while he himself takes a leave of absence. The public is quick to protest:

This German prude has much to learn

About the ways of Siciliy.

To snow and ice he’d best return

And take with him his chastity.

A man of zeal and determination, a disciplinarian, strong on law and order, Frederick is eager to make his mark, with the limited time at his disposal, to reshape his wayward subjects by means of a crash course in morality. We are about to see the first fruits of his frontal attack on human frailty -- a crackdown on the flourishing tavern trade.

Among the honest drinking folk who are being forcibly evicted, sent sprawling out into the street, we find three dapper young men who we suspect have much to learn about the noble ideal of austerity. Lucio, with his friends Antonio and Angelo, are guilty of idleness and frivolity. We might go so far as to admit that they are guilty of being young. Yet even they have not yet been accused of the most pernicious, the most odious, the most heinous crime of all -- the crime of making love. Wait.

CLAUDIO:

So heinous, I’m to die for it!

We leave the tavern for the cloister, the House of St. Elizabeth, where Lucio is sent to summon Isabella, Claudio’s sister, upon whose powers of persuasion his life now depends. Mourning the recent loss of both her parents, rejecting the world for a life of prayer and devotion, she has become a novice in this quiet retreat, before permanently taking the veil:

Here in the cloister, gently time flows,

Bearing the gift of peace and repose . . .

By chance, she has found here a childhood friend, Mariana, similarly afflicted with misfortune, the nature of which till now she has kept secret, even from her intimate friend:

MARIANA:

The priest had made us man and wife;

We thought it best to keep it secret.

Yet he, a stranger from the North,

Entirely on his own,

Was favored by the king, and rose to heights

That spurred him on to greater heights.

With marriage weighed against ambition,

He left his wife without a word.

From the cloister to the courtroom, where Frederick, the teutonic viceroy, presides as administrator of justice, where Isabella is to attempt the uphill task of thawing his frozen heart:

My brother’s life in danger!

I’ll do what must be done.

The key to his survival

He hands to me alone.

To turn around the tyrant,

Down on my knees I’ll plead,

And trust to God and heaven

To find the words I need.

She pleads with the utmost fervor by urging the viceroy to look into his own heart:

Have you not felt the thrill of danger,

As winds of passion sweep the heart?

Has love remained a silent stranger

That dwells aloof, in worlds apart?

A woman’s voice, sublime and tender,

May melt the cold and solid core;

The paradise of shared surrender

Lies not beyond a distant shore . . .

Frederick’s reaction far exceeds Isabella’s expectation:

You rouse a passion I have never known before.

You talk of love, and as I listen,

Your breath ignites that spark of love.

You can save your brother

If with me you’ll take

That same dark path to heaven . . .

To her horrified protests and threats to expose his hypocracy to the world at large he produces the clenching rebuttal:

If you should call me rigid, ruthless,

If you accused me of cruelty

You may be sure they’d all believe you.

But say I burn with passion,

They’ll call you crazy.

ACT TWO

From the courtroom to the courtyard of the prison where Claudio, far from resigned to the death penalty imposed upon him, paces anxiously, waiting to hear the outcome of Isabella’s appeal for mercy. Although she has contrived a possible way out of this horrible situation, by passing off Mariana as herself, Isabella succombs to a flair for the dramatic. Stunned, perhaps even momentarily dis-oriented by the monstrous hypocracy of Frederick’s vile proposition -- Claudio’s life in exchange for her honor -- instead of revealing her plan, one can only sup-pose that she is eager to show off her brother’s incorruptible courage by putting it to the test. Her confidence that he will rise to the occasion and live up to the role of self-sacrificing hero is to receive something of a jolt.

From the prison to the palace, where Frederick confronts his inner demons and broods upon the paradox of his own personality -- hitherto immune to passion, now overpowered by it, yielding to its irresistable tide:

The melting breeze of Southern skies

Stirs dormant ashes into fire.

And though the way of death there lies,

I revel in this fierce desire! . . .

My cup of overflowing rapture

Obliterates both God and Hell.

Carnival night on the Corso!

LUCIO:

You Columbines and you Pierrots,

Discard your dingy working clothes;

Put down the dull and daily task

And don the visor and the mask.

We start the Carnival tonight

And law surrenders to delight.

Come on! Come on! And play your part!

We welcome all the young of heart.

As law and order step aside,

The doors of pleasure open wide.

Let others sleep when day is done,

We Southern folk are out for fun.

Forget the Dutchman and the Ring;

We’ll give you songs that you can sing,

And send the critics into shock

By harking back to Offenbach . . .