Anna Nicole

BAM Next Wave Festival. The late Playboy model and reality-TV personality Anna Nicole Smith might not seem like the ideal inspiration for a serious opera, but what resulted when English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas turned their heads to the subject was a tragedy emblematic of our media-besotted time, and a 2011 smash hit for Covent Garden. Mounted here by BAM in cahoots with New York City Opera, the work's NYC premiere is directed by Richard Jones and conducted by Steven Sloane.