Mrs Gucci

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Mrs Gucci

Published in Mrs Gucci
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Mrs Gucci
gucciblackEntirely based on court transcripts and verbatim reports, Mrs Gucci is the amazing true story of Patrizia Reggiani, daughter of a truck driver, who marries Maurizio Gucci, the shy son of the famously bullying Milan Fashion clan. He rejects his father to marry her and is excluded from the company. For ten years they are happy and live a fairy tale life, becoming an iconic couple in Italy, akin to Elisabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, or Aristotle Onassis and Jacqui Kennedy. 

PATRIZIA: I’d rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be unhappy on a bicycle.

hen, thanks to the death of his father and the machinations of his cousin Paolo Gucci, Maurizio is dragged back into the Gucci company and its lethal boardroom politics. Meanwhile, superstitious and fearful, Patrizia comes under the influence of a  self-styled sicilian 'neuromancer' and 'psychic advisor', Pina Auriemma. Soon the marriage flounders, and after ten years separation, Patrizia and Maurizio are divorced. But Patrizia can't let go of her anger or her love, and - recovering from an operation for a severe brain tumour - she asks for Maurizio to be killed...

PATRIZIA: It was worth every lira to see him dead…. But he wasn't worth one lira more. 

In short, though set in jet set world of the 70s to 90s, Mrs Gucci unpicks the legend of the woman now called 'The Black Widow of Milan' and finds in it a modern female version ofOthello, a woman driven from passion to madness, and madness to murder, and to kill the one she loves.

PATRIZIA: Truth is the daughter of time, so I shall take time....

For more check out the development website - Guccithemusical.com 
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Second Mrs Gucci Video

Published in Mrs Gucci
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Second Mrs Gucci Video

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Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli - Background

Published in Patrizia
| 10 February 2012
 

"I’d rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be unhappy on a bicycle”

Patrizia Gucci is an iconic figure. A strong woman, with an intense dark beauty, her marriage into the world-famous fashion house was both her making and the cause of her downfall. For a while she was an Italian celebrity with the glamour of a Grace Kelley. But in her clashes with the Gucci dynasty she more closely resembled Princess Diana. She once compared social events with the Gucci to ‘having dinner with the Borgias’.

Born into a poor Milanese family in 1948, Patrizia never knew her natural father. Her mother, a laundress, remarried a well-to-do townsman when Patrizia was 12. Fernando Reggiani took years to legally adopt his new step daughter but spoilt her with matching shoes and mink coats. This ambiguous attitude to men, money and security hounded Patrizia throughout her life

When Patrizia met and fell in love with Maurizio Gucci  she was at the height of her charms. He must have loved her intensely. By all accounts Maurizio was one of the shyest of the Gucci clan, but nevertheless he stood up to his father and uncles to marry Patrizia in 1971 – even though this meant being written out of his father’s legacy. Maurizio’s father Rodolfo accused Patrizia of being a ‘gold digger’ and ‘low class’ – a little ironic since the whole clan owed their fortune to Guccio Gucci, who was a lowly hat maker.

For a while, Patrizia and Maurizio lived an idyllic life: two beautiful daughters, a large house in Milan, villas on the coast, yachts. They were the high society couple of Milan, feted by politicians, writers and artists. Maurizio had no interest in company politics and their marriage seemed blessed.

But even during these happy times there were hints of what was to come. Patrizia was highly superstitious, worried that there were malign forces out to get her. Her irrational fears made her easy prey to those who wanted to exploit her, and while on holiday in Sicily she met Pina Auriemma, a manipulative ‘psychic adviser’ (think of Cherie Blair's guru Carole Caplin).

Before long Patrizia’s fears of some kind of curse were fulfilled. The Gucci family business had always been run along the lines of fraternal warfare. When Maurizio’s favourite cousin Paolo Guccitried to start up his own label, the family descended into vicious and often violent confrontation in the boardroom. Then, when Maurizio’s father died, it turned out he had left his son shares in the company after all. Along with his cousin, he had a controlling share, and a night of the long knives, Maurizio and Paolo ousted the rest of the family and took over the Gucci Empire

But victory came at great cost. As Maurizio got more and more involved in the running of the business, he became increasingly estranged from his wife. Meanwhile, her irrational fears became more obsessive. Maybe it was an early indication of her growing brain tumour, but Patrizia’s anxiety was a self-fulfilling prophesy. She pushed Maurizio away. Tired of the struggles both in the home and in the board room, Maurizio sold the company in 1983 and left Patrizia.

Even then Maurizio was half in awe, half in love with Patrizia. He sent news he was leaving her through his family doctor – he was too scared to tell her face to face. He also took ten years to divorce her. During this time Patrizia half loathed, half adored her estranged husband. She famously dismissed his divorce settlement as ‘a plate of lentils’ and said:

"Maurizio was my husband. I was, am and will always be in love with him… Unfortunately, he was not the man I wanted him to be.”

Though still living the high life, Patrizia’s mental state deteriorated badly, and she became increasingly under the influence the fortune teller Pina. She was diagnosed with a life threatening brain tumour and though she survived the resultant operation, Patrizia was told that Maurizio had only come to see her ‘to see if she was dead’.

Patrizia was furious when her ex set up house with a new partner and started asking everyone she met - lawyers, her babysitter, her mother, her friends – whether they could organise the assassination of Maurizio. Her mother said Patrizia’s requests for a hit on her ex husband were as casual and commonplace as if ‘she was asking for a cup of tea’.

No one took her seriously. Except her Sicilian psychic adviser Pina Auriemma…

The circumstances around the murder of Maurizio in 1995 are still debated. Pina Auriemma organised the hit through her contacts in the Italian underworld. Patrizia only started paying the psychic and her accomplices after the shooting. Whether the money was in payment for the deed, or blackmail after the event, is open to question. But when the killers demanded more hush money Patrizia refused. In her typical, slightly mad fashion Patrizia claimed: "It was worth every lira to see him dead…. But he wasn't worth one lira more."

The truth eventually came to light two years later when Pina Auriemma and her friends tried to hire a Colombian enforcer to scare Patrizia. The hit man was an undercover policeman. The police arrested Patrizia in 1997 and the resulting trial was a tabloid sensation. It captivated both Italian and international media: Patrizia was dubbed the ‘Black Widow of Milan’ and was sentenced along with Pina and the other conspirators to 25 years.

After being found guilty of her husband's murder Patrizia said. 

"Truth is the daughter of time, so I shall take time”.

Patrizia has protested her innocence ever since, claiming she was blackmailed. Medical opinion has cast doubt on whether she could have ‘criminally responsible’ at the time of the assassination given her acute mental condition. Her demand for a retrial on this basis was turned down by the court of appeal in Venice in November 2006. As with her life so far, Patrizia seems bound to court more controversy and strong opinion, but this is what makes her such compelling a figure.

Like Maria Callas or Judy Garland she seems to embody so many powerful contradictory emotions – superstition, glamour, love, hate – that only a tragic drama, with all the expressive power of music, can really do her justice.

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Maurizio Gucci

Published in Maurizio
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Though their love was dysfunctional and ultimately destructive, there is a sense in which Maurizio is Patrizia’s soul mate. They have much in common especially a desire to escape their pasts.

Maurizio’s background was fabulously wealthy compared with Patrizia but his childhood was emotionally deprived. He had a bullying abusive father, Rodolfo, uncles, cousins, all following his grandfather Guccio Gucci's premise that family competitiion and fraternal struggles for power only 'increased the strength of our blood". Unsurprisingly Maurizio was timid and avoided conflict, and by all accounts Maurizio was one of the shyest of the Gucci clan.

Nevertheless, having and fallen in love with Patrizia, Maurizio did finally find the strength to stand up his father and uncles to marry Patrizia in 1971 – even though this meant being written out of his father’s legacy. Maurizio’s father Rodolfo tried to intercede with the Bishop of Milan to get the marriage stopped, and called Patrizia a ‘gold digger’ and ‘low class’ –a little ironic since the whole clan owed their fortune to Guccio Gucci, who was a lowly hat maker. Only Maurizio's affable cousin Paolo stood by him.

After the wedding, Maurizion wanted no involvement in the House of Gucci. For a while the newly weds escape the dark side of the Gucci legacy. He and Patrizia have two daughters, and Patrizia gives Maurizio the strength to stay out of the family feuds for several years. But when Paolo tells the Gucci Board he wants to start his own label, the internecine conflict becomes so animated (even physically violent), Maurizio is sucked into the board room battles to protect his cousin. Out of the blue, Maurizio's father dies and to everyone's shock and surprise, does pass on a controlling interest in the business to his estranged son. In alliance with Paolo, Maurizio can now stand up to the rest of the family, and they both organise a boardroom coup, leaving Paolo free to pursue his own label, and Maurizio in charge of the fashion house. 

But victory came at great cost. The Gucci label was struggling to keep its pre-eminence in the new world of international popular fashion, and had labels like Armani, Versace and Yves San Laurent nibbling away at market share. As Maurizio got more and more involved in the running of the business, he became increasingly  estranged from his wife. Meanwhile, her irrational fears became more obsessive. Tired of the struggles both in the home and in the board room, now massively enriched by foreign invesment in the company, Maurizio left Patrizia in 1983.

Even then Maurizio was half in awe, half in love with Patrizia. He sent news he was leaving her through his family doctor along with some valium – he was too scared to tell her face to face. And while he carried on running the Gucci firm under constant

 threats from the rest of the family, he also took ten years to divorce her. In 1987 he sold half the company to a Bahrain investment bank, but continued as managing director for the next six years, spending massively. It is not until 1993 that he finally divested the rest of his holdings and made a final divorce offer to Patrizia.

Finally free from the Gucci brand, Maurizio settled for the quiet life with an interior designer Poala Franchi and her young child. For the next two years Maurizio is a private man, living in Milan out of the limelight, finally free of the Gucci curse. But Maurizio hasn’t reckoned on his ex wife’s obsession - or Pina Auriemma’s underworld mafia contacts.

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Pina Auriemma

Published in Pina
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Pina Auriemma

Our wily and scheming narrator, Guiseppina Auriemma is a self proclaimed psychic and white witch who claims she can see the future. Maybe that’s because she is a successful con-woman and hanger-on who manipulates Patrizia during her darkest days. The two women met when Patrizia was on vacation near Pina's hometown of Naples. Cleverly playing on Patrizia’s anxiety and superstition, Pina became her confidante and advisor during the divorce. She even began to co-write a book "Gucci versus Gucci" with Patrizia to expose the family’s dealings.

But it was during the period of Patrizia’s illness that Pina’s influence becomes more poisonous. In her way, Pina plays the same role to Patrizia that Iago played to Othello – the underling turned manipulator.

Pina organises the hit on Maurizio and then starts demanding hush money. She describes Patrizia as her ‘golden egg’, but her greed eventually leads to the unravelling of the whole conspiracy. After the trial Patrizia’s daughter Alessandra would claim ‘That Sicilian stole the soul of my mother’. Patrizia herself said of Pina: "Never let a friendly wolf into the chicken coop… Sooner or later it might get hungry"

What were her motives? Greed, certainly. Control. But there is something so intense about Pina's claim to read the future, as well as manipulate it. She and Patrizia had a tense toxic relationship with strong undercurrents of misanthropy, mutual infatuation, and all the psychopathic tendencies of other criminal partners, a classic folie-a-deux, a madness only two can contrive and fulfil.

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Paolo Gucci

Published in Paolo
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The artist in the family, and for many years the chief fashion designer for the Gucci brand, Paolo is emotional and expressive, and Maurizio’s natural ally. Early on he seemed to recognise the abusive tendencies of his legacy and once explained how "Nonno (Grandpa) would pit the children against each other, to prove they had balls...". Through his love of fashion and design Paolo has a dream that one day he will  succeed in renovating the label - even create one of his own. Like Maurizio, he is often in conflict with the sterner, controlling older generation - and his conflict with his own father Aldo exceeds even Maurizio's with his.

By the early 1980s as the upmarket Gucci house had become a global and more populistic airport brand, and Paolo leads the charge in changing Gucci with the times.  However, when blocked by his brothers and family, he tries to set up his own label. this desire for self expression meets with even fiercer opposition, and on on occasion leads to violence. Paolo emerges from one boardroom meeting with blood streaming from his head having been hit with a phone by one of his brothers. Paolo gets his revenge by betraying his father the US tax authorities in. Aldo, then 81, is soon arrested and prosecuted, but the family feud - a staple among the Guccis - simmers on through countless law suits in the US and Italy.

The real turning point is when Maurizio receives 50 per cent of the Gucci shares on the death of his own father Rodolfo. Though Aldo and his other sons try to bring a law suit claiming Maurizio has faked the signature, the suit fails, and with Maurizio on side side with a controlling stake of the company, Paolo finally achieves his dream of getting his own name on a range of fashion accessories. 

But Paolo's own divorce from his wife Jenny (above) soon brings Paolo into court again. He is threatened with imprisonment, and creates another public scandal when many his beloved race horses are found to have been neglected in a New York state stables, and have to be shot.

Disgraced, unkempt, and already suffering from chronic liver problems, Paolo died soon after Maurizio’s murder – from natural causes according to the post mortem – but more likely from a broken heart.

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Other Cast

Published in Other Cast
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Currently the Work in Progress form of Mrs Gucci is a four hander. But this is a scaleable musical. In a larger format, the show could include some of the characters below.

HIGH LIFE

RODOLFO GUCCI – Maurizio’s bullying but occasionally affable father, represented the more upmarket snobbish appeal of the Gucci brand

ALDO GUCCI – Maurizio’s uncle and the creator of the GG logo. More concerned with expansion and mass markets than Rodolfo, he is in constant conflict with his brother and his own son Paolo.

GIORGIO & ROBERTO – Aldo’s other sons, Paolo’s brothers, who act as designer suited cohorts to their father, often using threats and intimidation to get their way.  

LOW LIFE

VANO SAVIONI – an impoverished Sicilian doorman who recruited the hit man for his friend, the fortune-teller Pina Auriemma.

BENEDETTO CERAULO - the nattily gunman accused of doing the hit. He claimed needed the money to take his daughter shopping for shoes.

ORAZIO CICALA – a pizza shop owner and self confessed drug dealer who drove the getaway car after Maurizio’s murder

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Legals

Published in Work in Progress
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COPYRIGHT: the music, lyrics, text and story structure to this site are strictly the copyright of the author and composer © Marcos D'Cruze and Peter Jukes 2006-2012. Copyrighted photos are for private viewing only and must not be reproduced without permission from copyright holders.

EDITORIAL: The facts of the Patrizia Reggiani Martinelli Gucci murder trial are public knowledge. All the events and quotations in this story have been drawn from more than one documented source, either newspaper article, court transcript, or other public domain material. No copyrighted books or biographies have been used. The Gucci family name itself cannot be copyrighted. Because this is a musical and not a fashion chain there are no trademark issues.

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Research

Published in Work in Progress
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Click above to play current demo of the wedding theme Viva Gli Sposi

The Ultimate Fashion Victims

Based on court transcripts and verbatim quotes mrsGUCCI is a passionate factual drama of love, divorce and murder set against the fashion and cultural background of the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

Patrizia Gucci and Maurizio Gucci who were once Italy's most high profile couple. 


For a while Mr and Mrs Gucci embodied chic, riches and happiness. They were like the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of Italy. But in typical Italian fashion, the falling out was much more dramatic and violent

Though it touches on the family saga of one of the world's most famous families,mrsGUCCI has a unique and original story to tell. First and foremost - it's completely true. Secondly, it's a love story, but of a love that went terribly wrong.

Ultimately, it's an Othello-like tragedy.....the story of a woman who, manipulated by malign influences and ultimately madness, is driven to kill the one she loves.

Marcos D’Cruze and Peter Jukes 2011

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Work in Progress

Published in Work in Progress
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Please note:  this is an outline for the slimmed down workshop production of the musical: a four hander (three singer/actors and one actor) that can be performed at a small venue with a small band. However, Mrs Gucci is a scaleable musical, with potential for expansion with more characters, an orchestra and dancers.  Below is the current snapshot of the core emotional heart of the story and staging. The songs are shown at various stages of development, a handful as demos with nearly finished lyrics, others are just sketches with provisional lyrics, or indeed just la-la or guitar melodies..

PART ONE

Scene One - Prison Cell

Lights up on three leads singing chorus "It's not my fault". Paolo Gucci and Pina Auriemma flank Patrizia Gucci - the Black Widow of Milan - dressed in her mourning robes. Maurizio Gucci walks on, shoeless, in white shirt and slacks, covered in blood, and describes the day of his assassination.

 1. It's not my Fault - Maurizio with Pina, Patrizia and Paolo. 

2. Jail Time  Frame Underscore. 

Maurizio exits, soon followed by Paolo, leaving the two women alone. In a dislocated slightly unhinged rant (taken verbatim from the court record and interviews) Patrizia turns to the audience and says: 

PATRIZIA: Truth is the daughter of time, so I shall take time....  ...Did I love him?... Maurizio was my husband. I was, am and will always be in love with him…Unfortunately, he was not the man I wanted him to be. Truth is the daughter of time.. I shall take time..  The divorce settlement he offered wasn't worth a plate of lentils. Yes. I’d rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be unhappy on a bicycle. Yes. .It was worth every lira to see him dead…. But he wasn't worth one lira more.  Truth is the daughter of time.. I shall take time..  I shall take time....   I was, am and will always be..... in love with him. He was not the man I wanted him to be.  

Pina challenges her: you weren't in love with Maurizio. You were in love with the money, with the fame, the Gucci name. Patrizia protests her devotion. She adored Maurizio and he adored her - so much that Maurizio gave up everything to marry her. His father wrote him out of the Gucci company. Out of his will. She didn't marry the name - she married the man. And they loved each other despite the family's disapproval of the marriage.

By way of proof she takes us back to... 

Scene Two - Honeymoon Phase

3. La Vita Nuova (Maurizio and Patrizia)

The prison cell becomes the bridal bedroom for the newlyweds the day after their marriage in the Milan registry office. As Patrizia sleeps, Maurizio enters, shirtless, and sees his new bride in the dawn light. He's scared of his love for Patrizia. He can't believe the strength of his emotion. He's scared it's all a dream. So he wakes her up with a kiss, like sleeping beauty. Patrizia joins the song, in harmony. Towards the end of the song, they dance.

The dance stops and the song ends. Maurizio is left frozen, shirtless, lying on the bed as Patrizia steps back into her future of a prison cell. She tells Pina that this proves Maurizio loved her. But Pina winds her up. How do you know that? How can you be sure? Maurizio was so quiet and almost terminally shy  (the character of Maurizio never speaks, only sings). How do you know what he was thinking?

4. Pina’s Theme Underscore - First half only. 

Patrizia snaps back into the past, and berates the silent frozen figure of her dead husband: why did he never speak? Why was he so weak? Why did he never stand up for her in front of the family?

Patrizia's anger soon turns into another wild rant and Pina has to pull her back, and remind her hat Maurizio is dead, and she's in prison for his murder. She's the infamous Black Widow of Milan (the character of Pina never sings, only speaks).

But Patrizia can't accept the reality. She doesn't believe she killed the man she loved. She tries to look for other explanations for events, and then it hits her. It was Maurizio's family that killed him. It was the famous curse of the Guccis which destroyed her marriage. He left the family business. But then his cousin Paolo dragged him back in....

Scene Three - Dinner with the Borgias

The prison cell becomes a dining room. Paolo joins the trio and throws his cousin Maurizio a jacket and shirt.

It's a Gucci family dinner party, which Patrizia famously described as like 'having dinner with the Borgias'. Paolo - exuberant, witty, always the salesman - raises a toast to the couple, celebrating ten years of marriage. It's a fairytale romance. They're as famous as Ricard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Or Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy.

5. Hell for Leather (Paolo and Company)

It's a fairy tale marriage, but every fairy tale has its monster. The Gucci name is a brand. Paolo tells Patrizia: you took the name, you have to pay for it somehow. Patrizia looks concerned. Maurizio says nothing. Then Paolo drops his bombshell.  He praises Maurizio's success at breaking away from his father, and wishes he could do the same. He bemoans the way the Gucci label has gone down-market in the 80s, and Paolo plans to start a label of his own. Indeed, he wants Maurizio to join him. Together they could form an alliance to oust their parents from the Gucci company and take it over.

But Maurizio makes it clear. He wants nothing to do with the family business. He rejects the offer; "You can't buy me. I am free."

6. I Love You More: (Maurizio & Patrizia)

Paolo leaves, disappointed. Maurizio has once again made the decision to put his wife over his family. But the twist is this; Patrizia actually wants him to get involved in the Gucci brand and get rid of his crass cousins and uncles. 

Scene Four - Premonition Beach

Back to the frame of the prison cell. It's clear that Patrizia had ambitions of her own. She's not as innocent, not just the simple housewife and mother she makes herself out to be. Pina had seen this in her horoscope from the moment they met. She's under the sign of Saturn. She's a diva. A manipulator. Someone who wants to pull the strings.

By now, Patrizia has had enough of Pina's version of events. If it wasn't the Gucci family that killed the marriage, or Maurizio's lack of love, there is one key moment when things began to fall apart: when Pina entered her life.  

PATRIZIA: Never let even a friendly wolf into the chicken coop. Sooner or later it will eat all the chickens. 

Pina remembers the moment she met Patrizia on a beach in Sicily:  

7. Pina’s Theme 2 Underscore plus Patrizia vocals see 3 above . 

Though relaxed on a beach watching her children play in the sand, Patrizia has a moment of foreboding - like a cloud blotting a sunny day. Something is wrong. Pina sees this and introduces herself as a 'psychic adviser' and spiritualist. She has sensed her ominous mood, and wonders what has happened. Patrizia points out the new yacht her husband has bought - the Creole. A woman was murdered on it several years ago.  Maybe the new yacht her husband has bought is cursed. Pina reassures her. Such curses are rare. And they can be easily combatted. She has the skills to ward off those dark forces. Patrizia is safe with her.

But then Maurizio arrives looking pale and shocked. Patrizia knows he's heard some devastating news, but he can't tell her. She assumes there's been some other falling out among the family. But it turns out to be more and less than that - Maurizio's estranged father has just died. 

Scene Five - Buried Love

The Paolo arrives with a black tie and jacket for his cousin; the cast gather formally around the grave of Maurizio's father Rodolfo. The bereft son sings a passionate elegy to his absent father. . 

8. Perfect World (Maurizio)

As Maurizio puts a flower on the grave he's clearly both grief stricken, and guilty for having broken from his father. Patrizia feels excluded by his grief, and the sudden return of family loyalty. 

Pina declares - that was the moment it ended The marriage break-up had nothing to do with the psychic. Maurizio had been written back into his father's will at the last moment, so he was pulled back into the business. It was the curse of the Gucci family, the sibling rivalries, the toxic boardroom politics that ultimately estranged the marriage, and killed the marriage. 

However, Paolo now speaks up. He has a completely different version of events. The marriage broke up because of Pina - the evil Sicilian Witch - who poisoned Patrizia's fragile mind with all kinds of mystic nonsense and toxic self-fulfilling prophesies.  

PAOLO: You wanted your husband to be a man. But you forgot one thing. To be a man, he had to stand up to you. 

Scene Six - Separation and Divorce

Maurizio and Patrizia try to embrace, but are pulled apart, respectively, by their two closest confidantes - Paolo and Pina. Finally something snaps - and Patrizia lets out again her mad rant about how she loved her husband, but he didn't deserve her love.  Still dressed in mourning, Maurizio backs off - shocked. The last thread is broken. He wants a separation. That was the moment the marriage finally died. 

Patrizia is left alone on stage to contemplate the ruin of her love, and her own complicity with it. Her premonitions have come true, because she made them come true.  She realises she drove him away with her obsessive fear. 

9. I Blame Time (Patrizia)


But Part One ends on a note of hope and triumph. Patrizia still thinks she has time to win back her husband's love .

PART TWO

Scene One - Unhappy Daze

Lights up on a yacht party where a cheesey crooner played by Paolo, gives us a resume of what has happened to Patrizia after ten years of separation from her husband. We see her as a butt of his jokes, trying to drunkenly dance, falling off her chair, manhandled by men. She's a tragic figure of forlorn love, unable to move on, and mortified by Maurizio's recent divorce settlement offer. 

10. Mrs Gucci (Paolo)

At the end of the song, Patrizia falls off her chair again. This time she doesn't get up. Pina comes over, assuming that her acolyte is just drunk again. But there's something wrong. Patrizia is having an epileptic seizure. Pina calls the doctor. It's serious.

Scene Two - Operating Theatre

Patrizia is waiting to undergo surgery. A masked doctor (doubled by Maurizio) tells her that the seizures are caused by a life threatening brain tumour and they have to operate to save her life. He asks her about her next of kin. Though they are now divorced, Patrizia wants Maurizio to know how ill she is. He will always be her husband, despite the impending divorce, despite the paltry divorce settlement he's offered.. She gets Pina to promise to send a word to her ex husband. For all that's happened, she wants him to know she still loves him. Then she goes under ether and into surgery

11. Before I Die (Patrizia and Maurizio)

During the operation, Patrizia has a vision. The surgeon removes his mask. It's Maurizio. They dance to the finale of the music.

When Patrizia wakes up, she asks Pina if Maurizio came to check on her. Pina nods. Patrizia is desperate to know what he said. Pina is reluctant to tell her. But Patrizia drags it out of her.

PINA: Yes. Mauro did come.

PATRIZIA: But what did he say? What did he want? Why did he come here?  

PINA: To see if you were dead

Scene Three - Convalescence

12. Pina’s Theme 3 

Mortified, a broken woman, Patrizia climbs into a wheelchair and is pushed around the stage by Pina. She's even more confused and obsessed with her ex. Sometimes she's convinced that Maurizio is dead, killed by rivals because of some vendetta in the Gucci family (he's selling the company at this point). But Pina says he's still alive, with a new partner and child. Maurizio isn't dead. He just wanted Patrizia dead.

Patrizia can't bear it. She feels she can only be free if her ex is gone. He's wasting his daughter's legacy. His business decisions are destroying the Gucci company. Patrizia starts asking everyone - members of the audience, even the musicians, how much it costs to kill someone, and whether they know someone who can do it.

Pina tries to stop her: she could be arrested for conspiracy. Instead of trying to kill Maurizio physically, they should get their revenge by writing a book: character assassination is at least legal. But trying to recall the past with Maurizio only makes Patrizia more incensed. She goes back to asking people if they know a hit man. Pina stops her. She's from Sicily: she knows some people. A pizza shop owner and a doorman. They have contact. It can be arranged for a few hundred thousand lire. Patrizia dismisses the idea. It's crazy. She doesn't want Maurizio dead. She wants to be dead. But she can't help asking.... How much?

Then an old man approaches. Patrizia can barely recognise him. But Pina does. It's Paolo. He's aged a lot. He's bankrupted after a second divorce, and there's a rumour that he has cancer.  Paolo refuses to talk to Patrizia with Pina there. With some reluctance, the confidante and spiritual adviser goes.

13 Mountain Air (Paolo, Patrizia)

Paolo wants to know how Patrizia is. In song, he apologises for his role in her divorce and heartbreak. He's dying, but he tells her to leave the past behind, enjoy her life, and move on. 

Patrizia is moved by Paolo's pleas, and despite her frail health echoes his song back to him. She is sad when he finally has to go. It seems like she might back off from this murderous obsession with her ex. Then Pina reappears to push Patrizia round and round the stage. It's clear she already has the money for the hit, and Patrizia is too emotionally disordered and confused to stop her. 

Scene Four - The Hit

Patrizia is left in the centre of the stage. She's finally strong enough to get herself out of her wheelchair. She removes the head bandage from the operation, and her long black hair comes cascading down. She's putting her make up on when she sees Maurizioacross the stage (they only lived a couple of blocks away from each other in Milan at this point)

Maurizio is getting ready to leave his house and go to work in his white suit. It's years since they separated, but in Patrizia's mind, it's like yesterday: he's still thinking of her: she can't stop thinking about him.

14. What are you doing Today? (Patrizia, Maurizio)

Before she can catch his eye Maurizio heads out of his flat to work and into the gun of an assassin (doubled by Paolo): he is killed with three shots at point blank range. 

Black out.

Scene Five - Aftemath and Judgement

 Lights up on Maurizio's body, shoeless, covered in blood after the assassination. Pina and Patrizia stare at the body, lost in recriminations, each blaming the other, protesting their innocence to the audience. We're back to the opening scene, with Patrizia now in her full 'Black Widow' regalia

15. It's All Your Fault - (Reprise) Pina, Patrizia.

At the end of the song, an offstage voice condemns Patrizia and Pina for conspiracy to murder, and sentences them to 25 and 26 years respectively in Milan's San Vittore prison. Patrizia still protests her innocence. She was blackmailed by Pina. She didn't know what she was doing. She was mentally unstable. But Pina has one last devastating shot:

PINA: C'mon, Patrizia. Drop the act. You're not mad. You're just in denial. And this whole charade.... it's a scam. To exonerate you. To get you freed on appeal on the grounds of mental instabilty. But you're not mad. You're just in denial. Or something worse. So drop the act. Everyone can see through it. . 

Patrizia is stripped of accessories and jewellery, her black veil and shawl, and handed prison fatigues to wear. 

Scene Six  - San Vittore Prison Today

As she paces around her prison cell, Patrizia is still haunted by images of the past - the riches, the love, the lifestyle she has lost. She feels completely alone, yet hounded by the attentions of the crowd and the endless publicity of her case. She can't tell the difference between truth and lies anymore - is she mad? Is she pretending. The only thing she has to hold on to is her loss, and the loneliness of her impossible murderous love.

16.  My Place (Patrizia)

17. My Place (Version Two Patrizia)

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