Jerry Springer - The Opera

[StoneMtn]

That's Shawntel Rigoletto to you

Dec. 9, 2005. 01:00 AM

VINAY MENON

Heavy metal, maybe. Possibly even country or gangsta rap. But opera?

No, Wagner and Puccini rarely spring to mind when one watches The Jerry Springer Show.

But think about it some more. Seriously.

Lurking behind the expletives and taunts, the hissing crowds and security buffoons, the flying fists and shattered dreams, the yelping parade of losers, misfits, cheaters, schemers, outcasts and swindlers, is there not something vaguely operatic?

That's what Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee believed when they sat down to create Jerry Springer — The Opera, a cultural oxymoron of epic proportions.

As the name implies, their mutant creation was a disorienting mash-up of high art and tabloid trash. A madcap romp of profane fugues and librettos, scabrous arias and choruses.

More than two years after the musical — "swearical" may be a more accurate term — opened in London to raves and inevitable controversy, it has finally crossed the pond and arrived on the small screen.

Jerry Springer — The Opera makes its North American television premiere this weekend (Bravo!, 9 p.m. tomorrow). Depending on your sensibilities, it will come across as: a) inspired, brilliant, c) surreal, d) vile, or e) evidence the world has gone bonkers.

Jerry Springer — The Opera started in 2001 as a 30-minute production...

---Full story here---

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

This is one of the things I regret not having cable for.

[YearsAlongTheSea]

"A MUST see."

-Some dude.