Hot pink feather boas, drag queens, pole dancers, Frito pies—could this really be opening night at the opera? It is if the opera in question revolves around the tawdry, colorful life of Playboy model, reality star, and tabloid queen Anna Nicole Smith.
On September 17 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the financially beleaguered New York City Opera staged the United States premiere of British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole, which is likely to be the 70-year-old company’s last production ever. The 280 patrons who arrived at 5:30 p.m. for the preshow dinner reception followed a pink carpet into BAM’s Lepercq Space, which was gussied up by Fleurs Bella with a bedazzled, campy display of crystals, disco balls, marabou, and animal prints. Once seated at their tables, which were laden with costume jewelry, pink roses, and feathers, guests enjoyed a three-course meal prepared by Great Performances that included elegant takes on some of the ill-fated star’s favorite foods (think popcorn-flavored mousse and cornbread-stuffed chicken roulade).
Following the show, 550 guests made their way around the corner to Skylight One Hanson for the after-party, where the ambiance was also inspired by Texas-born Smith’s garish, over-the-top persona. Drag queens greeted partygoers, while a scantily clad pole dancer entertained the crowd. Guests could also dress up in wigs, tiaras, boas, and other Smith-inspired props, as well as pose in a photo booth complete with a painted backdrop of flashing paparazzi bulbs.
Chef-attended tasting plate stations served Southern comfort foods including Frito pies, chicken and waffles with maple butter sauce, and tater tots topped with gooey cheese and jalapenos. The dessert station was decorated to look like a boudoir with the menu written on vanity mirrors in red lipstick, and jewelry boxes overflowed with chocolate truffles, pink meringues, and candy lips. Guests could also help themselves to pink cotton candy, mudslide cookies, strawberry milkshakes, and Ring Pops. “It was deliberately lowbrow and tacky,” said Great Performance’s design director, Josh Tierney. “It was a younger, Gen Y crowd at the after-party, so we wanted to have fun with the food and the decor—nothing sophisticated.”
