Arts & Events

In a lifetime of opera-going in which I’ve attended over 1,300 opera performances, I’ve never till now had the chance to attend a performance of Richard Wagner’s second opera, Das Liebesverbot. At last the opportunity was presented by Pocket Opera, which offered it on Sunday, May 15, at Berkeley’s Hillside Club. As usual, Pocket Opera offered this opera, as they do with all operas, in an English translation written by their late founder, Donald Pippin. So Das Liebesverbot was presented as No Love Allowed, which is an apt translation of Wagner’s own title. 

Despite all the Wagner scholarship I’ve read over the years, I still found myself slightly unprepared for how different this opera was from all the other Wagner operas I’ve seen so many times. For one thing, Das Liebesverbot is a comic opera, a genre that Wagner himself only ventured into one more time, in Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg. All the rest of his vast opera production was given over to oh so serious operas. So some of my perplexity in encountering Das Liebesverbot was how different this was from almost everything else Wagner wrote. Further, his models for this early opera were 19th century French and Italian comic operas. So Wagner attempted to endow Das Liebesverbot with wit, charm and a brisk pace, something he rarely did elsewhere in his long career. Perhaps the one thing I found similar between Das Liebesverbot and everything else Wagner wrote is that this opera was very loud. Even the much-reduced Pocket Philharmonic led by Jonathan Khuner managed to pump out a boisterous, very loud performance that reverberated in the small, enclosed space of the Hillside Club. 

DAS LIEBESVERBOT was a near-total fiasco at its premiere in Magdeburg in 1836 with Wagner himself conducting. The second performance had to be cancelled because a fistfight broke out backstage between the prima donna’s husband and the tenor even before the curtain could rise. At this performance only three people were in the audience. It was never given again in Wagner’s lifetime. Later in life, in a rare self-critical moment, Wagner repudiated this opera, labelling it “horrible.” He averred that he liked this overture better than that for his first opera, Die Feen; but aside from that he approved only DAS LIEBESVERBOT’s Salve regina coeli, a hymn sung by nuns at a convent. 

Based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Das Liebesverbot deals with a would-be tyrant, who, in a vain effort to chasten Carnival revelers, tries to outlaw love, sex and any celebration of Carnival. Wagner transfers the setting from Shakespeare’s Vienna to Palermo, Sicily, where the King of Sicily has temporarily left his domain in the hands of a Viceroy, Friedrich, a stout-faced German who heavy-handedly clamps down on his citizenry as Carnival approaches. He orders his captain of the guard, Brighella, to arrest anyone who displays licentiousness, including even Claudio and his Julia, two lovers who are expecting a child out of wedlock. Friedrich was here sung by baritone Spencer Dodd and Brighella was sung by baritone Michael Grammer. Both were convincing in their roles. Claudio was sung by tenor Austin Brunett, who was a sympathetic, much put-upon figure. 

In an effort to save himself from a death sentence, Claudio entreats Luzio to seek help from Isabella, Claudio’s sister, who is in a nearby convent. Luzio was here sung by tenor Michel Dailey, who was excellent in this role. Isabella was sung by soprano Leslie Sandefur, whose radiant voice has already won her the prestigious Leontyne Price award. When we first encounter Isabella she is engaged in friendly conversation with her fellow novice nun, Mariana, beautifully sung here by soprano Aléxa Anderson. Mariana reveals to Isabella that her husband cruelly abandoned her in his ambitious craving for political power in Palermo, and that her husband is none other than Palermo’s temporary Viceroy, Friedrich. These two women forge a bond and agree to help one another as they deal with cloistered life in the convent. 

Luzio converses with his buddies, Angelo and Antonio, sung here in bit roles by baritone Julio Ferrari and tenor Eric Levintow respectively. Though these three men fail to stop the crackdown on licentiousness, Luzio agrees to seek the help of Isabella to free her brother Claudio. When Luzio arrives at the convent and is granted an audience with Isabella, he becomes instantly smitten with her and he then succeeds in persuading Isabella to temporarily leave the convent to return to the world in an effort to plead for the life of her brother. How sincere are Luzio’s feelings for Isabella is put in question by his already being bound in a promise to marry Dorella, a very flirtatious young woman who becomes charged with prostitution. Dorella is sung by mezzo-soprano Sonia Garlaeff. When Brighella attempts to play the role of judge in cases of alleged licentiousness, Dorella turns on all her seductiveness, enflames Brighella with lust, and wins dismissal of the case against her. 

When Isabella passionately entreats Friedrich to pardon her brother Claudio, Friedrich becomes instantly smitten with Isabella and tells her he’ll pardon Claudio only if she agrees to spend the night with him. Revolted by Friedrich’s hypocrisy, Isabella initially threatens to accuse Friedrich publicly. But Friedrich retorts that no one would believe her and he threatens her with reprisals if she dares to go public with her accusation— a threat that women even today face as the Me Too movement makes all too clear. Thinking things over, Isabella quickly comes up with a plan to win her brother’s pardon by agreeing to meet Friedrich for a clandestine night together wearing Carnival masks but she’ll substitute to the rendez-vous a masked Mariana, Friedrich’s estranged wife. When this substitution is revealed to the public, Friedrich will be humiliated and forced to pardon Claudio. 

Suffice it to say this plan works, and all’s well that ends well. Mariana and Friedrich are reconciled, Claudio is pardoned and rejoins his Julia, and Luzio even wins the love of Isabella. As for Dorella, she happily hops in bed with Brighella. The ban on Carnival is lifted. 

Musically, Wagner tries hard to master the gusto of French and Italian comic operas of the day. Ernest Newman, in his book on Wagner, finds the overture to Das Liebesverbot ingratiating, at least in a superficial way. Of the overture, Newman writes, “All the while the tone is getting louder and louder, with a crescendo roll on the tympani. One has to listen, whether one wants to or not….The whole overture is very effective in this noisy, rather empty way; there is much use of castagnets, tambourine, triangle, and cymbals.” Granted, there is hardly a trace of depth of character in Das Liebesverbot, but Wagner is content here to endow this music with as much superficial Italian brio as he could muster. 

Pocket Opera’s production of No Love Allowed enjoyed music direction by Jonathan Khuner, stage direction by Nicolas A. Garcia, costumes by Joy Graham-Korst, and set design by Daniel Yelen.