But the curtain never went up. Part of the reason was the huge costs of staging an opera with 30 performers on Broadway. There were also worries about the controversy that the show was sure to generate. When the BBC telecast the musical in Britain in 2005—without cutting a single F-word, the network got a record 63,000 letters of protest. A Christian group sued under an ancient blasphemy law. (In the show, for example, a guy in a diaper appears as “Jesus” and says he’s “a little bit gay.”) Last month the British High Court rejected the suit, but according to one of the producers, Jon Thoday, after the religious opposition began, interest in the opera “went totally cold.”
This week, “Jerry Springer–the Opera” finally came to New York, for a two-night concert version at Carnegie Hall, starring Harvey Keitel. The Catholic League, which has called the show “patently obscene and a viciously anti-Christian musical,” had a group of protestors outside. Blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder, but that aside, “Springer” has more issues than a season of talk shows. Though the real Jerry Springer show is almost beyond parody, the first act was promising: a string of Springer guests–a cheating boyfriend, a would-be pole dancer, a transvestite–who sang their hearts out in operatic style was a pretty funny idea, brought to life by fine performers.
But the unmemorable music began to wear thin, and the second act failed to ignite what could have been a brilliant scenario: an amoral Jerry Springer forced to do his show in hell. “Jerry Springer–the Opera” definitely has something to offend everyone but that’s not its sin. It commits a far bigger show biz sacrilege by just not being very clever.
