Mozart, we’re not in Italy anymore.

When audience members watch KU Opera’s opening night performance of Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte,” they won’t be in an 18th century villa.

They’ll be in the more familiar confines of a 1950s Kansas home.

Tim Ocel, artistic director of KU Opera, said the idea to remake “Cosi” came to him while furniture shopping in north Lawrence and reflecting upon his work with William Inge’s plays, a Kansas-born playwright.

“I was driving past the grain elevator and all these houses,” said Ocel, associate professor of opera. “And I’ve directed William Inge plays, and I know this is William Inge territory.”

He said somehow exploring Lawrence and thinking about “Cosi” blended together.

The opera is more accessible to audiences because it’s a remake and English translation of the original version, said Holly Wrensch, Marshfield doctorate student who plays Dorabello.

While “Cosi’s” setting has changed, the story stays the same. A man, Don Alfonso, bets two soldiers, Guglielmo and Ferrando, that their lovers will cheat on them if they go to fight in the Korean War.

The soldiers accept Alfonso’s bet and try to woo each other’s lover in disguise. The women then fall in love with the disguised men and lose their honor.

“Cosi” is about the loss of innocence but is also a psychological comedy, Ocel said.

“It’s not very nice, and it’s not particularly pleasant — the outcome,” he said. “I mean, can you imagine two guys betting on their girlfriends’ fidelities? This is a joke, I mean, it’s a bet. But the girls don’t know it.”

Because of the lack of attention-grabbing comedy, achieving the comedic effect was the most difficult part of the opera, said Julie Maykowski, who plays Despina.

“This is a shtick-free production, and I have a whole bag of shtick,” said Maykowski, Colorado Springs, Colo., doctorate student. “But to try and find the humor the real way, that has been real hard for me.”

This is isn’t the first time that “Cosi” has been updated. The 2004 film, “Closer,” used the same idea and used music from the opera for the soundtrack.

The English translation of the phrase “cosi fan tutte” roughly means “all women are like that,” or fallible, Wrensch said. This is the moral Alfonso is trying to teach the soldiers.

She said the other moral of the opera is about learning from life’s lessons.

“The moral of the story is that you learn a lesson from every journey you take,” Wrensch said. “And you gotta see the humor in that.”

Ocel plans to give the play, “Candide,” a similar setting remake this spring when he directs it. In his version, Westphalia, a province in Germany, will be the University of Kansas and Pangloss will be a professor.