“it is a curious story… i have it written in faded ink”
Following in the footsteps of Harrison Birtwistle’s Minotaur and Thomas Adès’ The Tempest (which featured the half-human character Caliban), the Royal Opera House has commissioned yet another opera based upon a legendary monster. The as-yet-untitled oeuvre is the life story of Anna Nicole Smith, with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage (The Silver Tassie) and libretto by Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: the Opera).
According to Elaine Padmore, Covent Garden’s director of opera, the Anna Nicole tuner “… is not going to be tawdry; it is going to be witty, clever, thoughtful and sad. In broad outline, it will tell the story of her life, the people who influenced her, her progress . . . . a parable about celebrity and what it does to people. It can be moving, it can be funny and it tells universal truths about human frailty.
“It is a very sad story – a larger-than-life American story, as was Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West. It will be a slice of our times – of America in the pre-Obama days.”
La Cieca’s invites her cher public to suggest possible casting, aria titles and so forth for the work. [via The Telegraph]
I nominate ArmerJ to explain the concept of the rhetorical question to harry at #169.
Hahaha- well, cocky, I’ll ‘do’ my ‘best’.
“The Tempest (which featured the half-human character Caliban)” …btw sung at the premiere by Ian Bostridge.
La Padmore has learned that type casting always pays off.
Listening to Angel Taormina’s exquisite take on Lucia, I believe her nickname “La Rossignol Dramatique” is fully deserved, though “Nightingale Stuck in a Cuisinart Blender” would also do fine.
La Cieca – since your headline here is from the opening of Henry James’s (also Benjamin Britten’s) The Turn of The Screw, may we assume that you are envisaging the appearance of Anna Nicole Smith’s ghost in this opera?
Harry, that was exactly my point; I was being facetious.
Re dysfunctional opera families; the Luna family who are always either burning or beheading somebody, and The Tudors of Anna Bolena, with little bloody Mary and little Elizabeth offstage, and the Seymours and Percys and Howards et al scheming to get their own girl in the royal sack. And poor genderbender Smeaton, who I think got quartered in real history.