Synopsis The opera looks at the high-profile celebrity lifestyle of the American glamour model and actress Anna Nicole Smith, who died in 2007 after an apparent drug overdose at the age of 39.
Few contemporary operas have received such pre-performance hype and column inches in the press as The Royal Opera’s latest commission, Anna Nicole. Given all the publicity and ballyhoo surrounding the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s third opera it’ll come as no surprise that all six performances sold out well before the first night. Good news for contemporary opera? Well whatever the merits of the work, it’ll bring a new audience to The Royal Opera, but as always with these ventures whether that audience will be snapping up tickets to come and see Fidelio is a different matter altogether.
Turnage and his librettist Richard Thomas have devised a two act opera, each act is approximately 60 minutes in length and the first is considerably stronger than the second. Charting the rise of Anna Nicole from humble beginnings, via a tit-job, to marrying J Howard Marshall II, Act One races along at a suitably hectic pace. Much of it is mordantly funny and it’s here that Richard Jones’ day-glo staging is at its best.
Act Two is darker, as Anna Nicole, now a pill-popping caricature of herself, bloated and ‘otherwise engaged’ for most of the time finds the death of her son Daniel too much to bear and overdoses. The final image, of her climbing into a body bag, is a poignant one but I can’t honestly say that I’d been able to engage with her as the opera progressed, so it just left me feeling a bit cold, and the fault for that must lie with the musical idiom that Turnage deploys.
His music has always been influenced by Jazz and Blues, but given the episodic nature of the work I had expected a stronger musical voice to emerge. For the most of the night the music chugs along as a mere backdrop to what’s happening on stage and I think the main problem is that Anna Nicole doesn’t know what it wants to be. It lacks the ‘tunes’ to be called a musical, but lacks the emotional depth to be called an opera so it remains floundered in a no-man’s land somewhere in between the two. In every opera the music needs to propel the drama, and create the drama but that doesn’t happen here. It’s the morning after the night before and the only music that I can recall is the opening chorus, which is surprising.
Having said that the playing of the orchestra under music director Antonio Pappano was faultless – The Royal Opera don’t do things by half, although the much trumpeted appearance of bass guitarist John Paul Jones in the pit and on stage for the party scenes went for nought as he couldn’t be heard. Singers were amplified ‘subtly’ although the only voice that seemed to be was Eva Maria-Westbroek’s in the title role, which seemed odd as she possess the most voluminous of all the voices on stage.
Her portrayal of Anna Nicole was quite simply stunning. Not only did she sing brilliantly all evening but managed to convey all the character traits of the model turned money grabbing ‘ho’ to perfection. As ever she was a riveting stage presence, no mean feat given that she was on stage for the entire evening.
As her billionaire husband Alan Oke gave a tour de force performance whilst there was able support from Gerald Finley as the lawyer Stern, although the character remained resolutely one-dimensional, and Susan Bickley as Nicole’s mother.
The Royal Opera certainly gave Anna Nicole the best send-off possible and I found much of it laugh out loud funny but I don’t believe its operatic credentials are as strong as everyone was expecting, which is a pity, but six sold out performances can’t be bad.
A new opera is rare on the main stage at Covent Garden (and rarely good too). The scene is set as soon as you enter. In the foyer, all the pictures and memorabilia have been replaced by Anna’s. In the auditorium, the angels behind the lights have been given Anna faces, there’s a big one above the now pink curtain and even the royal crest has changed from ER to AR!
Twenty years ago, I saw an exciting opera debut at the Edinburgh Festival by a young 30-year old based on Stephen Berkoff’s play Greek; it showed great promise. Ten years later, I saw the first and best opera of the last decade based on Sean O’Casey’s play The Silver Tassie by the same composer. It’s taken another eleven years to get Mark Anthony Turnage’s third – he’s talented, but not very productive (opera-wise)!
So it’s good to report that it was worth the wait. It lives up to the hype and may well be the best modern opera ever staged at Covent Garden (it’s a small short-list, with Thomas Ades’ The Tempest and Birtwhistle’s Gawain and Minotaur vying for the accolade). It’s a very operatic modern story and Turnage has found the perfect collaborator for the subject matter – Richard (Jerry Springer – The Opera) Thomas’ libretto is sparking, shocking and suitably satirical. He has chosen a more accessible musical theatre style for the music (with added jazz) which again suits the subject matter; there are times when the score, played by the great RO orchestra under Anthony Pappano’s direction, really shines.
The first act shows us her rise to fame and it’s irreverent, blissfully funny and brash beyond belief. There is a huge shiny suited chorus of clones who narrate her story from trailer trash waitressing to marriage to an 89-year old billionaire via lap dancing. Her family is gross, the places she works tacky and even with wealth, tastelessness reigns (design Miriam Buether!).
In the second act, the billionaire (Alan Oke – terrific) dies and we see her decline through drug and food abuse, her pay-per-view birth, her son’s death and reality TV. It actually does become sympathetic and you do see her as a victim. Her predatory lawyer becomes the baddie to end all baddies (a great performance from Gerald Finley). In a brilliant stroke, the chorus become walking cameras who follow her around everywhere.
Richard Jones is the perfect director to pull all of this together and he’s done a cracking job. Eva-Maria Westbroek is excellent as Anna, Susan Bickley (though occasionally inaudible, even from the second row of the stalls) gives a fine characterisation of her mother and Peter Hoare impersonates CNN’s Larry King brilliantly. All of the many other small roles are expertly cast.
Now they have a hit on their hands, I suspect the inevitable revival will be at higher than the musicals ticket prices applied for the premiere, which would be a shame as for once, the lower parts of the house were accessible to mere mortals – appropriate for an opera about a mere mortal……. - Gareth James
03 Apr 11
The main motivation for attending this was to be able to visit the Royal Opera House at (relatively) affordable prices. The life story of Anna Nicole Smith is of course highly familiar and so as an opera it was accessible but I was surprised by the comparatively poor quality of the theatrical experience. Mark-Anthony Turanage's score was frequently unmelodic and the libretto by Richard Thomas was clumsy and nowhere near as funny as Jerry Springer. Eva-Maria Westbroek embodied Anna Nicole well but the biggest surprise was how much of her singing was barely audible, buried by the chorus and orchestra. I know the opera purists would have heart failure but the quality of amplification means that this is almost never a problem with musicals. Alan Oke was impressive both for the clarity and quality of his performance as the geriatric billionaire husband. This was an interesting experience if not a highly satisfying one. - David Baxter
03 Mar 11
Too much Jazz in the score and
Richard Thomas snapping the audience with his phone at the calls, underlined his cheap,derivative words. Excellent work from the cast and crew.....against the odds. - coral
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