Photo by Pari Dukovic
Get ready Brooklyn, the Anna Nicole Smith opera is coming for you.Now that the Lifetime movie has come and gone, it's BAM's turn to tell the story of how a small-town Texas waitress named Vickie Lynn Hogan wound up marrying an octogenarian, landing a Guess modeling campaign and basically setting the stage for what would become train-wreck reality show programming, before tragically passing away at the age of 39. The opera, which was composed by Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas (who, perhaps unsurprisingly, also wrote the Jerry Springer opera), was commissioned by London's Royal Opera House and premiered in 2011. Soprano Sarah Joy Miller will play the titular role and we hear that the score includes arias about boobs and narcotics -- but you probably guessed that anyway.
Anna Nicole runs at BAM September 17-28