News

The Royal Opera House (ROH), renowned for is grandeur and upper market productions, is changing things up in 2011 by premiering a new opera based on the controversial life of playboy girl Anna Nicole Smith, who tragically died in 2007 at the age of 39.

Before her death Smith was caught up in a long-running legal battle to claim a share of the estate of her late husband, billionaire oil tycoon J Howard Marshall. At 89 this made Smith a whopping 63 years her senior when they married.

The new opera by co-creator of the Jerry Springer The Opera, Richard Thomas, said the opera would end with Smith's death rather than the messy court battles that followed. 

The new opera will premiere on the 17th February 2011 with Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek taking the lead role, with music by composer Mark-Anthony Turnageis.

Other highlights in the ROH 2010/11 season include, the Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The UK premiere of Philip Glass's In The Penal Colony, based on a short story by Franz Kafka about an execution machine, will be seen in September.