"Don Pasquale & His Trophy Wife May 22, 2012

Underworld Productions Opera (www.underworldprod.com) will present "Don Pasquale & His Trophy Wife," an interpretation of Donizetti's 1843 opera buffa, in two site-specific locations May 22 to 24. Performances will be Tuesday, May 22 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò NYU, 24 W. 12th Street, and Wednesday and Thursday, May 23 and 24, at Abigail Adams Smith Auditorium, 417 E. 61st Street. The work is directed by Artistic Director Gina Crusco, who is amassing much street cred as a "plot doctor" for classical operas. She re-envisions Don Pasquale not as an elderly bachelor but a married man who would throw over his aging Signora and make the beautiful, much younger Norina his "trophy wife." Signora Pasquale disguises herself as the sham Notary to complete the deception that is played on the old man, revealing the true moral of the story in the final Rondo.

In 1843 when Gaetano Donizetti’s comic gem was premiered, the notion of a 70 year old bachelor deciding to marry a young widow provoked outrage and hilarity. It was expected that audiences would side with a plot against Pasquale, concocted by his best friend Dr. Malatesta, which would allow the beautiful Norina to marry her lover Ernesto. In 2012, May and December matches are hardly rare. "I wanted to give modern audiences a reason to enjoy roasting Pasquale," said Gina Crusco, Artistic Director. "Thus was born the idea that Don Pasquale is already a married man."