It’s confession time. Yes, I admit to having watched that phenomenon of trash television, The Jerry Springer Show. It was (quite) a long time ago and it only happened (just about) once. Truly nothing in life is wasted, however, because the experience turned out to have been useful advance homework on Jerry Springer: The Opera…
A grown man wearing only a nappy is waving a gun. An assortment of white trash and trailer-park lowlifes is weaving around the stage, and at the back, a chorus of Ku Klux Klansmen is merrily tap-dancing. As a bad-taste musical moment the closing number of Kombat Opera’s show rivals the brilliant Springtime for Hitler…
The word opera for most people means overweight, overpaid singers displaying their tonsils to an audience of overdressed people who probably haven’t the faintest what they’re listening to. Well, now there’s an antidote – a democratic opera-musical that is tiny, easily affordable, sung in English and still pretty incomprehensible. That’s because everybody’s on stage shouting…
Who says opera can’t comment on contemporary issues, this proving its worth in an all-too sceptical modern society? You only have to look at the amazing success of Battersea Arts Centre’s Jerry Springer The Opera since its first workshop performances in August and September 2001. For those lucky enough to catch it there could be…