UK opera house plans work about Anna Nicole Smith
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Covent Garden, Britain's foremost opera house, plans to stage a work based on the life of late Playboy model and reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith during its 2010/11 season, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
The libretto for the work is being written by Richard Thomas, co-creator of the hit musical "Jerry Springer: The Opera", which fringe Christian groups labeled as offensive and blasphemous. Mark-Anthony Turnage is composing the music.
"We have not announced it yet, but it is in the plan at this stage and something we are looking at for the period 2010/11," the spokeswoman said.
The decision to stage the new opera at the Royal Opera House in central London may lead to renewed complaints that the prestigious company is "dumbing down".
Opera magazine accused Covent Garden bosses recently of "showing classic signs of mid-life crisis and going to unseemly lengths to get younger flesh on its seats."
Smith died aged 39 of an accidental prescription drug overdose in Florida in February 2007 and is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Nassau alongside her son.
At the time of her death, Smith was embroiled in a long-running legal battle over the will of her late husband, billionaire oil tycoon Howard Marshall. They had married when she was 26 years old and he was 89.
Thomas called Smith's life "an incredible story".
"It's very operatic and sad," he told Britain's Independent newspaper. "She was quite a smart lady with the tragic flaw that she could not seem to get through life without a vat of prescription painkillers."
He added that his libretto would end with her death, rather than focusing on the sensational court battle over the disposal of her remains and custody of her daughter Dannielynn.
"For me, it ends when she does," Thomas said.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
