The opera tells the story of Rosario, a Maltese fisherman, who, having married a local girl, finds himself stranded on the tiny Italian island of Valeriana during the Second World War. The island is under the charge of a despotic fascist podestà named Cirillo. 

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Cirillo is a native of Valeriana and has known great deprivation as a child. He sees action in Africa and comes back to the island with a shattered arm. It is time to get his own back. All men of military age are despatched to the front, and the remaining inhabitants, a motely bunch of women, children and old men, are totally at his mercy. 

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Since Rosario refuses to renounce his British passport, or to collaborate with the Podestà, his boat is confiscated, and he finds himself beached. The two men are driven by a murderous hate towards each other. Cirillo suffers from paranoia and illusions of grandeur. Having failed to convert Valeriana into another Capri for fascist officials, he now wants to turn it into an impregnable fortress against the Allied Forces, with dire consequences for the inhabitants. It is a comic situation, but one which can and does have tragic outcomes.