“Anna Nicole Smith: The Opera”
The Telegraph reports: ‘The tragicomic life of Anna Nicole Smith (pictured), the glamour model who famously married a stupendously wealthy tycoon 63 years her senior, may seem a more likely subject for prurient farce than grand opera. But, according to the Royal Opera House, it is perfect fare for transformation into a piece of lyric theatre, a grand musical and dramatic parable for our times.
‘So it is that one of the most celebrated names of British contemporary music, Mark-Anthony Turnage, is writing the story of Anna Nicole Smith as an opera, to be staged at Covent Garden in 2011. The libretto will be provided by Richard Thomas who, as the co-creator of “Jerry Springer the Opera,” is no stranger to controversy.
‘”It is not going to be a horrible, sleazy evening,” Elaine Padmore, Covent Garden’s director of opera told the Guardian. “It is not going to be tawdry; it is going to be witty, clever, thoughtful and sad.’
