“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]
This ‘Angel Taormina’ creature is a right scream for all the wrong disturbing reasons. The 21st Century’s pathetic ‘fruitcake’ imitation of a diva. Delusions of pretentious grandeur pervade the air.By taking down her “Lucia’ clip off her website, perhaps she suspected the associations one could form with that opera character, are too close.
Similarly, English pretense fills the air with Turnage, he provides the clue : if one remembers his modern opera based on Oedipus Rex themes called ‘Greek’, which unfortunately, I happened to see twice..
Using even Maggie Thatcher (the former British PM) as an political form of avenging Goddess. He is not into writing opera, he is fascinated with making copy as a ‘cheap rat-bag socialistic commentator’.
amerjacquino’s justifying comments about Turnage(109#) I find misplaced and flawed.
Dawnn Behrens as Anna!! Check her out on Facebook!
Brooklyn Punk, thanks for the Dallas/Moby Dick info. I see Heppner is cast as Ahab. Any ideas on who is portraying Ishmael (La Cieca’s favorite young tenor could be great in this role) or Queequeg? Can’t wait to see the Dallas Opera vid on this one. Especially the scene where the sailors clasp hands in a vat of spermicetti.
Dear MissG #124,
I nominate someone [wealthy] to take one for the team, buy Angel’s CD, and post it all up on Youtube for collective lolz.
Ah well, I think she’s even worse than Florence Foster Jenkins, quite an achievement.
for everyone lucky enough to hear her Lucia before she took it down:
“Taormina takes her Lucia to new heights with this special arrangement of the aria which garnered her the title of “La Rossignol Dramatique” after her performance of it was premiered during her “Through the Eyes of an Angel” show in New York City.”
LOL, takes it to new heights indeed.
jay… along with Mr. Heppner, the opera will also feature Morgan Smith as Starbuck and my pal Stephen Costello as Ishmael. Also Jonathan Lemalu as Queerqueg, Allan Glassman as Flask, Robert Orth as Stubb and Talise Trevigne as Pip. Yeargan and Jane Greenwood sets costumes…
Just spoke to Mr Heggie on Tuesday evening in Fort Worth… he was pulled out of a composing hole to speak there… said that Moby Dick would be finished, but not until opening night… He seems calm and excited at the same time about it… I am personally very excited, and offered myself as a middle aged bald supernumerary if he needs one…
This is an interesting and entertaining thread, but I suspect that this opera will probably play in the Linbury Theatre, a much smaller venue in the basement of the ROH, rather than on the main stage. I may be wrong, but it strikes me as being that sort of thing.
Much of what happens in the Linbury gets very little attention from the London-based media and blogosphere, let alone further afield.
Even when Monkey: Journey to the West appeared there it was ignored, unlike when it moved to the O2 arena (aka the Millennium Dome).
Info on my comment back up in the 80s: Mandy Rice Davies was a busty London call girl who was a bud of Christine Keeler, in the early 1960s, who was involved with in the Profumo scandal–cabinet officials, bimbos, upper class pimps, and Russian agents. This is dating me.
Toarmina’s ‘grandstanding’ boast on her website about correspondence with Joan Sutherland (to strengthen the inference of her own supposed singing ability) is blatant phony networking. Gee, she is the Ed Wood of opera. It made me remember a similar hilarious line from a satirical revue featuring Liberace. The line (from the Liberace character)’” Well I receive 6000 letters a day….and I can only tell you , only a few are from women”.
The best marketing strategy she can employ is: produce a CD, promote it to unsuspecting views on 4 AM T.V by mail order called ‘The Best 10 Angel Toarmina performances (to avoid at all cost) before you die’. Buy it as a present for friends you don’t like.
Gert:(comment 135#): I liken those types of experimental productions that play normally in the basements of Arts Center complexes as manifestations of ‘thespian rodents and maggots’ let loose to play and have a public wank, once in a while. Fumigant and disinfectant literally poured down the stairs into those environs would be a better solution. And spare the rest of us a wasted night.
You need to get Dawn Behrens, an award-winning Anna Nicole Tribute Artist out of Florida, USA for the part. People will be amazed when they see her step on the stage! Google her and see for yourself.
- Anne