Eva-Maria Westbroek's bewbs won't be the only artificially enhanced assets in Covent Garden's new Anna Nicole.
The Royal Opera House plan to take the rare step of adding vocal amplification, more usually associated with West End musicals, to ensure Richard Thomas's all-important words can be heard above Mark-Anthony Turnage's bold and brassy orchestration.
Of course miking opera singers is nothing new, as anyone familiar with contemporary American work will know. But it's still rare, especially at Covent Garden. The last production in which it was publicly acknowledged was 2009's Lulu, where sparing amplification was employed for certain upstage action.
The FT's perenially-astute Mr Bernheimer complains amplification creates "grotesque distortion" in the Met's current Nixon in China. Will Anna Nicole fare any better?
