NUDE SENIORS DON MICKEY MOUSE MASKS FOR 9/11 OPERA

Dozens of pensioners will wear plastic Mickey Mouse masks -- and nothing else -- for an avant-garde staging of Giuseppe Verdi's A Masked Ball in what looks like the ruins of New York's World Trade Center. Put on by a German opera house, the deliberately provocative 9/11-themed production premieres Saturday and was concocted by Austrian director Johann Kresnik. Also featured are Elvis impersonators and Hitler salutes on stage, where the ruins are re-created. "It will be a different, a provocative masked ball on the ruins of the World Trade Center," Kresnik told reporters. "The naked stand for people without means, the victims of capitalism, the underclass, who don't have anything any more." The seniors were recruited by the opera house in Erfurt in eastern Germany. They'd be totally nude if it weren't for their Mickey masks. "It's a very beautiful, poetic scene," insisted Guy Montavon, the theater's general manager. Some 60 amateurs were eager to show the full Monty for the premiere, but only 35 made it to the finals, Montavon said. Kresnik has described his staging as a populist critique of modern American society, which shows the gap between rich and poor while drawing a large audience. Some cast members wear soldiers' uniforms. Others wear the red, white and blue of Uncle Sam, or day-glow pink Elvis costumes, slashed to the waist. But many have chosen to appear in their birthday suits. A female singer sporting a painted-on toothbrush moustache offers a straight-arm Nazi salute. Although an Erfurt politician has urged a boycott of the production, local theatergoers aren't paying attention to him. Saturday's premiere at the Erfurt opera house is a sell-out, as are four other performances. Just a few tickets are available for other performances later this month. "One has to introduce new elements," Montavon said. "Otherwise, it is difficult to attract new theatergoers." Originally staged in 1859, Verdi's A Masked Ball has had its share of controversy. Verdi wrote it about the 1792 assassination of Swedish king Gustavus III, who was shot while attending a masked ball. In the 19th century, censors demanded that Verdi shift the setting from Europe to colonial America so as not to show the assassination of a European monarch. And the United States is still the setting for Kresnik's brave new version. However, it's set after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "The concept is a little critical about America, the world of America with very rich people, very poor people, with war and the excesses of American society today," Montavon declared.