In a tragic-comic take on the extremes of celebrity culture, composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, librettist Richard Thomas and director Richard Jones add Anna Nicole Smith to opera’s gallery of bad, sad girls. A pneumatic Playboy model who married an octogenarian billionaire, she achieved grotesque fame before her destitute, drug-riddled death.

With its jazz-coloured score and Eva-Maria Westbroek’s starry performance, this is, as the New York Times said: “an engrossing outrageous, entertaining and, ultimately deeply moving opera”.

"...It's a tremendous show...shocking it isn't; stunning it is!"
The Independent

CAST
Anna Nicole: Eva-Maria Westbroek
Old Man Marshall: Alan Oke
The Lawyer Stern: Gerald Finley
Virgie: Susan Bickley
Cousin Shelley: Loré Lixenberg
Larry King: Peter Hoare
Aunt Kay: Rebecca de Pont Davies
Older Daniel: Dominic Rowntree
Blossom: Allison Cook
Doctor: Andrew Rees
Billy: Grant Doyle
Mayor: Wynne Evans

Director: Richard Jones
Conductor: Antonio Pappano

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House,
23 & 26 February 2011

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