By Gaetano Donizetti


In Belding Theater, The Bushnell Center for
the Performing Arts


Friday, April 20, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Sunday, April 22, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 28, 2007 at 8:00 pm

Sung in Italian with English Translations

"Love alone instructed me to play
out the role."

Deceiving an old fool turns into happiness for young lovers. Ernesto loses his inheritance when he rejects the bride his uncle Don Pasquale has chosen for him. Disappointed, Pasquale decides to take a wife himself. Ernesto feels all is lost, until Dr. Malatesta suggests a plot to trick the old man into a change of heart. The Doctor convinces Pasquale to marry his docile niece "Sofronia" (in reality Ernesto's beloved Norina). Immediately after the vows, the bride becomes an annoying shrew. Angered, Pasquale annuls the marriage. When he's let in on the "joke," he tells Ernesto he can have Norina—and his inheritance.