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.

New York City Opera Announces 2013-14 Season

Four Operas, More Performances and a Blonde.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The City Opera opens its season with the U.S. premiere of
Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole.

The New York City Opera announced its 2013-2014 season on Tuesday morning, with a slate of programming that sticks to general manager George Steel’s four-opera formula but also offers some cautious, optimistic expansion on the previous and current seasons.

The press conference opened with the announcement that the company had balanced its books for this fiscal year. This balance was mainly accomplished by leaving Lincoln Center and avoiding traditional operatic expenses of livable orchestra salaries, unionized stage hands and a regular chorus.

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.