FULL AND THE CROWD WEPT (Erick Flores) London 2013 Sarah Minns, Norah King, Cathy Bell

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: And the Crowd (Wept)  
• Composer: Flores Erick   
• Libretto: Afsaneh Gray    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: London, UK  
• Recorded: August 1 & 2, 2013
• Type: Staged Opera Live

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Genesis

In 2009, when Jade Goody was dying of cancer, Afsaneh became fascinated by an image in a magazine: Jade getting married, jaundiced yellow, bald, hiking up her wedding dress to show her stockings. There was something gothic about it, somehow operatic. So she found Erick and asked him if he wanted to collaborate with her and produce an opera. Yes, he said, as long as it’s not about Jade Goody.

Synopsis

When Jade Goody died in 2009, her death was consumed like one more episode of the reality television that had created her. She was the symbol of the Big Brother generation, the first reality TV star to get widespread recognition, with crews from the United States, Germany, and elsewhere standing outside her house, reporting on her final hours. Articles were written with titles such as “How Death Will Come”, wherein a doctor predicted in what order Jade’s organs would pack up and how she would feel as they did; the quote “KILL ME NOW” was emblazoned on the front cover of The Sun. Apparently, we couldn’t get enough of this grim ending for the girl who’d “made it”. Part account of the way her life and death were reported, part modern-­‐day fairy tale, AND THE CROWD (WEPT) explores the emptiness at the heart of the celebrity dream. The story is told by a narrator and three women who attempt to piece together, and inhabit, the tale of this woman – a woman not once referred to by name.

This is not the story of Jade Goody. Of the woman she was, or even of the life she led. It is the story of celebrity.

(Visited 36 times, 1 visits today)