oppose this first step, and much scuffling ensues.  In the thickest of the throng the chief of the sbirri, Brighella (basso-buffo), after a preliminary roll of drums for silence, reads out the Regent’s proclamation, according to which the acts just performed are declared to be directed towards establishing a higher moral tone in the manners and customs of the people.  A general outburst of scorn and a mocking chorus meets this announcement.  Luzio, a young nobleman and juvenile scape-grace (tenor), seems inclined to thrust himself forward as leader of the mob, and at once finds an occasion for playing a more active part in the cause of the oppressed people on discovering his friend Claudio (also a tenor) being led away to prison.  From him he learns that, in pursuance of some musty old law unearthed by Friedrich, he is to suffer the penalty of death for a certain love escapade in which he is involved.  His sweetheart, union with whom had been prevented by the enmity of their parents, has borne him a child.  Friedrich’s puritanical zeal joins cause with the parents’ hatred; he fears the worst, and sees no way of escape save through mercy, provided his sister Isabella may be able, by her entreaties, to melt the Regent’s hard heart.  Claudio implores his friend at once to seek out Isabella in the convent of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth, which she has recently entered as novice.  There, between the quiet walls of the convent, we first meet this sister, in confidential intercourse with her friend Marianne, also a novice.  Marianne reveals to her friend, from whom she has long been parted, the unhappy fate which has brought her to the place.  Under vows of eternal fidelity she had been persuaded to a secret liaison with a man of high rank.  But finally, when in extreme need she found herself not only forsaken, but threatened by her betrayer, she discovered him to be the mightiest man in the state, none other than the King’s Regent himself.  Isabella’s indignation finds vent in impassioned words, and is only pacified by her determination to forsake a world in which so vile a crime can go unpunished.—­ When now Luzio brings her tidings of her own brother’s fate, her disgust at her brother’s misconduct is turned at once to scorn for the villainy of the hypocritical Regent, who presumes so cruelly to punish the comparatively venial offence of her brother, which, at least, was not stained by treachery.  Her violent outburst imprudently reveals her to Luzio in a seductive aspect; smitten with sudden love, he urges her to quit the convent for ever and to accept his hand.  She contrives to check his boldness, but resolves at once to avail herself of his escort to the Regent’s court of justice.—­Here the trial scene is prepared, and I introduce it by a burlesque hearing of several persons charged by the sbirro captain with offences against morality.  The earnestness of the situation becomes more marked when the gloomy form of Friedrich strides through the inrushing and