There are several very famous operas about fallen women, but it's unexpected to see the name
Anna Nicole Smith alongside the name
Royal Opera House. But apparently anything is possible, because this season the Royal Opera will be premiering
Anna Nicole - an opera about her life and times, from her career as a playboy model, to her marriage to a billionaire octogenarian, to the legal battles she became embroiled in at his death, her own suicide and her relationship with the media throughout.
Opera has been engaging with dramatic and tragicomic stories since its conception, but this is quite a controversial choice of material for one of the world's great, traditional opera companies. Though of course the material, once you consider it in all it's glitz, glamour, depravity and tragedy, seems ripe for the stage. The creative team behind the work have pedigree with the controversial though, Richard Thomas, one of the co-creators of 'Jerry Springer the Opera' is writing the libretto, which will be based on the ideas of Mark-Anthony Turnage, himself a well known name in the British music scene. The creators, and the ROH, say that it's not tawdry, but actually quite sad – though of course there will be funny moments. They say they're addressing the whole modern idea of modern celebrity, and the Faustian relationships that exist between the media and the 'star'. And who says that operas can't be topical and provide a commentary on modern life as well as entertain?
What is most unusual for the Opera House is that the flyers have a warning regarding expletives, drug use and sexual content, and of course that in this case the fallen woman is not redeemed in the final cords. In a world of plush reds and glowing golds Ms. Smith's neons and pinks might jar, and the harmonies that usually pervade operatic heroines in the end might not help the discord of her life. But whatever it is, this opera will definitely be engaging – just as the inescapably publicised life of Anna Nicole was.
