Opera Review: Oi! Oi! Oi! Oedipus!

BAM NextWave goes Greek
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Up the gunners: The cast of Greek at BAM.
Photo © Brooklyn Academy of Music and Royal Scottish Opera.

What do you get when you combine the classic tragedy Oedipus Rex with the laddish patois spoken in the East End of London? The answer might be Stephen Berkoff's 1985 play Greek which was made into an opera by Mark Anthony Turnage, the English enfant terrible whose operatic treatment of the life of Anna-Nicole Smith shocked audiences and incidentally, contributed to the quick death of the New York City Opera. This version of Greek, presented at the BAM Opera House by the Royal Scottish Opera,  showed that the universal Oedipus story still has its power to shock and distur, and the plagues of Thatcher's England are all too relevant in the strange times of today.

Opera Company Seeks Sugar Daddy

It may be curtains for New York City Opera.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The City Opera may cease operations and declare bankruptcy next week.

Like Anna Nicole Smith, the subject of what may be the final opera produced by the New York City Opera this season, the once-proud oper company has found itself in dire need of a sugar daddy to save its existence.

Unfortunately, J. Howard Marshall (played by Robert Brubaker in Anna Nicole) the oil billionaire who married the Texas Playboy bunny and stripper is dead. That much is certain.

Opera Review: Goin' Bust

As New York City Opera teeters, Anna Nicole shines.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

J. Howard Marshall II (Robert Brubaker, in wheelchair) gives an interview
pushed by the title character (Sarah Joy Miller) in Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole.
Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2013 Brooklyn Academy of Music/BAM NextWave/New York City Opera.

The impending doom hovering over the New York City Opera's plans for the rest of its 2013-2014 season did not affect the second U.S. performance of Mark Anthony Turnage's opera Anna Nicole. On Thursday night at the BAM Opera House, Mr. Turnage's opera revealed itself to be a gaudy, sleazy and fiercely funny retelling of the life of Vickie Lynn Hogan, the Texas waitress whose path of celebrity and perpetual self-reinvention ended with her death by overdose (at the age of 39) in 2007.

City Opera Faces Doomsday

Company announces emergency September fund-raising drive.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The New York City Opera faces an imminent fiscal crisis.
Image of Mike Myers as Dr. Evil from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
© 1997 New Line Cinema.. Caption by the author.

The New York City Opera dropped a bombshell this morning when it announced that the company is facing the possibility of cancelling most of its 2013-14 season--and plans for 2014 as well.

In a press release received by Superconductor on Monday morning, general manager George Steel announced that the company must raise $20 million in order to continue operations following its September production of Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Of that sum, $7 million is urgently needed.

DVD Review: Blonde Ambition

Anna Nicole at the Royal Opera of Covent Garden.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Busting out: Eva-Marie Westbroek as Anna Nicole Smith.

Photo by Catherine Cooper © 2011 

Royal Opera at Covent Garden/ Opus Arte

Mark Anthony Turnage's ambitious opera Anna Nicole is a scathing indictment of American celebrity culture, materialism and media hype. It's an opera about the things in society that have replaced opera in the popular culture. Its focus, the rise and fall of a girl from Texas named Vicki Lynn Hogan, who became an international celebrity as Anna Nicole Smith.