Anna Nicole, Royal Opera House

FROM OUR PREVIEWS: Controversial opera Anna Nicole returns to the Royal Opera House in September. Our critic Laurence Osborn lines up the arguments

Back at Covent Garden again having established itself firmly in the repertoire of contemporary opera, Mark-Antony Turnage’s operatic biography of doomed ‘90s model and television personality Anna Nicole Smith is bound to bring in the London audiences in droves. There is no doubt that Anna Nicole is a divisive piece of work: its supporters proclaim it as a much-needed meditation on the nature of fame and its various pitfalls, while its critics dismiss it as the tired operatic trope of the destroyed woman dressed in the garish garb of contemporary popular culture.

Whichever way you choose to look at Anna Nicole, however, it is indisputable that Turnage is a composer who knows the genre inside out. With its Punch-and-Judy characterization, its smart interplay between chorus and characters, and a fourth wall that switches freely between degrees of transparency, Anna Nicole continues a strand of self-conscious and progressive opera-making that Turnage began with his 1988 masterpiece Greek. It is this, rather than the gratuitous swearing, the puffed-up costumes, and the clichèd sex references, that makes Anna Nicole an intriguing piece of work. (And if it really does excite you to hear a world-class soprano singing about fellatio, cocaine, and bra sizes, then we suppose that’s a perfectly acceptable reason to see it, too.)

As far as the music goes, Anna Nicole brims with pastiche: Bernstein, Weill, Berg, and Mahler are all represented, alongside snatches of Country & Western, TV themes and so on. This sort of music amounts to a very enjoyable and colourful musical experience, but has been dismissed as too frivolous and cartoon-esque in some circles. However, the dirty, glammy orchestral writing, that has come to be known as Turnage’s signature style over the last couple of decades is always very exhilarating and satisfying on the ears, and it would take the very harshest of critics to say that the piece isn’t a thrilling ride.

The performers are of a very high quality. Having played the title role consistently since the work’s première in 2011, Eva-Maria Westbroek is a dead cert to absolutely nail every note. She is backed up by an exceptionally strong supporting cast, including the iron-voiced Susan Bickley, fresh from her role as Jocasta in Julian Anderson’s Thebans earlier in the year, and Loré Lixenberg, who eats Berio sequenzas for breakfast.

Although Anna Nicole is a controversial piece of work, it is certainly worth going to make your mind up about it. Not least because it will make for a spectacularly colourful post-opera dinner discussion. 

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