DVD REVIEW: ‘Anna Nicole’ molds high art with the lowest of the low

Anna Nicole Smith, the busty former model of Playboy who died in 2007, may have lived an operatic life, but her story doesn’t exactly seem readymade for a stage adaptation. With Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Thomas’s new opera, simply titled, Anna Nicole, the reality TV star has been given the star treatment that largely evaded her in life. Even more surprising: The opera is oddly effective.

Commissioned by The Royal Opera House and now available on DVD, the two-hour show is a smorgasbord of debauchery, cleavage, profanity and zaniness, depicting the sordid underbelly of the American dream. In other words, it’s a show that perfectly suits the personality of the real-life plus-sized model.

Charting her journey out of rural Texas at a young age, the opera focuses on the negative highlights of Smith’s life. From her octogenarian billionaire husband to the strangely close relationship with her lawyer, all of the magazine headlines are accounted for. Even Larry King makes a cameo.

Turnage’s music is grand and sweeping, while Thomas’s libretto is smart and funny. Taken together, the show pulls no punches. Yes, it finds the tragedy behind her story, but it also doesn’t look back at her history with sepia-toned glasses. The playmate is odd, graphic and uncomely. As the opera points out, she’s the definition of low-class.

Eva-Maria Westbroek’s performance as the titular character is spot-on and a feat to behold. The character never leaves the stage throughout the three-act opera, and the part is relied upon in every single scene. The vocal strain must have been overwhelming, and given the unusual subject matter, it must have been difficult to make it look so easy.

The DVD presentation of the opera, which played London in early 2011, is the usual stage-to-screen fare. Close-ups are especially welcomed, while the grander proscenium shots feel like a home video with a camcorder. It’s best in these DVDs for the cameras to get as close as possible, letting audience members see the details that might escape the people in the back rows of the theater.

The set by Miriam Buether is a hodgepodge of unseemly locations. There’s a strip club with a trifecta of poles and even a drop curtain featuring Smith with a barrage of hamburgers. Subtle this show is not.

Although the initial idea sounds like a joke, the opera comes together nicely and features an impressive arc. Perhaps it’s a credit to Smith’s legacy that her life feels so Shakespearean. She earns the interest of some crucial gatekeepers, and within a few short years, she’s on the cover of Playboy, married to a rich man who only has a few months left to live and the cameras can’t stop clicking. Of course, this meteoric rise needs to be followed by a precipitous decline. In Smith’s case, it’s drugs, girth and becoming the laughing stock of the reality TV craze.

Anna Nicole works better than expected, although its subject matter holds it back from perfection. It’s difficult to embrace a show that pokes fun at such oddity. But, as a guilty pleasure, the three-act show is fascinating, much like watching the unspooling of the blonde bombshell herself.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Anna Nicole

• Opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Thomas

• Directed by Richard Jones

• Starring Eva-Maria Westbroek, Susan Bickley, Jeremy White, Rebecca de Pont Davies, Loré Lixenberg, Grant Doyle, Gerald Finley, Andrew Rees, Alan Oke, Peter Hoare, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Allison Cook and Dominic Rowntree

• Running time: 120 minutes

• Contains explicit language and scenes of a sexual nature

• DVD features: Production insights, cast gallery and six exclusive postcards

• Rating: