Fort Worth Opera Announces All-Star Cast For Hollywood-Inspired Production Of DON PASQUALE

Fort Worth Opera (FWOpera) announced today the international cast of Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale, a classic, 19th-century comedy transported to Hollywood in the 1950s. Part of the company's exciting 2018 Festival (April 27-May 6, 2018), this bubbly farce, helmed by visionary director Chuck Hudson, reimagines the opera's miserly aristocrat as an aging silent film star living out his days in Sunset Boulevard seclusion. Opera lovers will be roaring with laughter, as they follow the rise and fall of a "legend" looking to resurrect his career in a cinematic world gone Technicolor.

Don Pasquale, played with fine-tuned flair by Turkish bass-baritone Burak Bilgili (Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera), sets out to recapture his youth and find a bride and heir to his vast fortune. He gets more than he bargained for once he weds, or thinks he weds, the celebrated starlet Norina, embodied by Grammy Award-winning soprano Audrey Luna (FWOpera's Ariadne auf Naxos). Known for her "blazing coloratura" (Opera News) and vocal pyrotechnics, Luna returns to Fort Worth for the first Norina in her illustrious career, after making Metropolitan Opera history by singing the highest note ever recorded in the company's 134-year existence.

Silent movies, sight gags, and Hollywood glamour abound in Hudson's clever ode to cinema and the art of mime. The scheming Dr. Malatesta, played with comedic brilliance by baritone Andrew Wilkowske (LA Opera, Komische Oper Berlin), hatches a plot on behalf of Norina and Pasquale's nephew Ernesto - acclaimed Korean tenor Ji-Min Park (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opera Australia) - to bring them together and turn the tables on the old Don. Under the baton of maestro Joe Illick, the renowned Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra brings to life Donizetti's sparkling Bel Canto score, accompanied by a parade of pop cultural icons like Groucho Marx, Lucille Ball, James Dean, Eartha Kitt, and Elvis Presley, played to perfection by FWOpera's talented chorus members.

TICKETS: Tickets for the 2018 Festival can be purchased online, by phone, or in person at the offices of Fort Worth Opera at 505 Pecan Street, Suite 100, Fort Worth, Texas, 76102. Tickets for Don Pasquale range from $17 to $185. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit www.fwopera.org or call 817.731.0726 or toll-free at 1.877.396.7372.

ABOUT FORT WORTH OPERA: Founded in 1946, Fort Worth Opera is the oldest continually performing opera company in Texas, and one of the 14 oldest opera companies in the United States. The organization has received national attention from critics and audiences alike for its artistic excellence.

FWOpera has taken a leadership role in engaging audiences beyond the operatic stage, while producing cutting-edge, contemporary operas. Beginning in 2017, FWOpera launched the second phase of its landmark, 10-year Opera of the Americas initiative with Noches de Ópera (Nights of Opera), a groundbreaking campaign which introduces powerful operas, each reflecting the diverse cultures of new American audiences.

Fort Worth Opera is sponsored in part by awards from The Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County, The City of Fort Worth, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Additional Fort Worth Opera sponsors include: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Amon G. Carter Foundation; American Airlines; Art & Seek; Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust, Bank of America, Trustee; The Pangburn Foundation, J.P. Morgan Chase, Trustee; the Sid W. Richardson Foundation; Star-Telegram; and WFAA Channel 8.

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