Mark-Anthony

Nobody could accuse Anna Nicole of being romantic or romanticised – Mark-Anthony Turnage's opera is in fact more satire than documentary, and it is curious that the characters selected for celebration in "docu-operas" have often been somewhat trashy.

I predict a riot 2011

The hope for "Anna Nicole" was that the creators - Mark-Anthony Turnage, a major compositional voice in classical music today with a bad-boy streak, and Richard Thomas, whose last pop-culture venture was "Jerry Springer: The Opera" - would transform their subject into effective theater.

Royal Opera's 'Anna Nicole' misses the inner beauty 2011

Covent Garden brought Rolando Villazón's career back from the brink with his performances in Werther, turned Anna Nicole Smith into an operatic icon in Mark-Anthony Turnage's overhyped new work, and hit its stride with Richard Jones's production of Puccini's Trittico.

The best classical music of 2011: Tom Service's choice 2011

The opera is the work of composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Thomas, creator of "Jerry Springer: The Opera."

The mixed reviews are in for Anna Nicole Smith: The Opera 2011

Undance comes with a score by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and design by Turner-winning artist Mark Wallinger, his first work for dance.

This week's new theatre and dance 2011

But there's music by living composers, too: Mark-Anthony Turnage's Hammered Out, which premiered at the Proms in 2010, plus the first performances of Anna Meredith's HandsFree, a piece commissioned by NYO under the 20x12 scheme, which uses clapping, body percussion and human beatboxing.

This week's new live music 2011

A few days from his 60th birthday, he had just risked his reputation by having 2,268 people troop into Covent Garden for a new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage based on the hopeful but ultimately doomed life of Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.

The Royal Opera House: Welcome to the new people's palace | Observer Profile 2011

Renowned for his Mozartian roles, he's also carved out a niche in contemporary opera, appearing in John Adams's "Doctor Atomic" and Mark-Anthony Turnage's "The Silver Tassie," and earlier this year played Howard K. Stern in the world premiere of Mr. Turnage's "Anna Nicole," based on the life of the eponymous glamour model, at the Royal Opera House in London.

Glyndebourne: The Great Leveler Guy Chazan 2011

The director said he told composer Mark-Anthony Turnage that I wanted him to draw on his interest in jazz, and not to think in terms of standard operatic music.

Pappano's Sound of Music Paul Levy 2011

This latest work by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and Jerry Springer librettist Richard Thomas is the story of Anna Nicole Smith, a rather sad and unstable person who in the mid-90s became a tabloid celebrity after marrying a very wealthy man 60 years her senior.

Tonight's TV highlights: Unreported World | Anna Nicole From The Royal Opera House | Frank Skinner's Opinionated | Friday Night Dinner | Toughest Race On Earth With James Cracknell | Treme 2011