Perhaps most wouldn’t normally brag about watching four adulterous lovers shred each other to ribbons before a group of screaming onlookers. But Hart House’s Canadian debut of Jerry Springer: The Opera promises to bring prestige (or at least an inbred cousin or two) to the gladiatorial freak show of daytime television. The opera’s first section is exactly what you might imagine from the title, complete with a high brow musical squabbling between an aspiring stripper, diaper fetishist, and, of course, a dangerously enthusiastic audience. But the play takes a real turn for the freaky when the show’s host is drawn from the world’s underbelly to the underworld. Forced to mediate disputes between Biblical characters, Jerry and his legendary conflict resolution methods suddenly assume roles of Wagnerian grandeur.
So how do Jerry Springer and his guests, who inspire disgust and schadenfreude in all who watch them, become the subjects of such an aggrandized art form as opera? To make sense of it all, I sat down with soprano Jocelyn Howard, who will play such characters as “Baby Jane” and “Peaches” (don’t ask).
“It’s a show to force us to examine our current culture—what we value and what we tolerate, and what we see as entertainment,” she says. “The characters in this show are not just white trash—they’re complex.” One of Baby Jane’s songs, “This is My ‘Jerry Springer’ Moment,” looks into what’s behind their desperate exhibitionism and makes these characters not merely pitiful, but sympathetic. “A ‘Jerry Springer’ moment is your fifteen minutes of fame,” says Howard. “It’s your moment in the spotlight, and you want to make it as sensational, memorable, and shocking as possible. We see that with a lot of these characters. I think of it as a moment where people think, ‘Hey, this is what my mark is going to be. This trashy and tragic thing is the most important, most significant thing I’ll ever do.’”
But soaring arias and quests for immortality aside, the show drops a ton of F-bombs (BBC chief Mark Thompson estimated around 300 expletives in the evening’s entertainment). There’s also plenty of sex and gore. “Nothing was changed or removed for fear of offense,” says Howard. “We are as offensive as possible. In a sense, that’s what the show is about, because it’s forcing people to reevaluate what we put up with.”
Thankfully, it’s clear from reading any of director Richard Ouzounian’s reviews (he is, incidentally, the theatre critic at the Toronto Star) that he has high standards. “I was worried about that at my audition,” says Howard with a big smile. “Not only is he a big cheese in the critiquing world, but he’s a really high-profile director and an artist himself. So I was imagining someone pompous, self-centered, and demanding and all of that. But he is incredible. He is amazingly creative and he makes his decisions so clear to everybody. But at the same time, he knows how to work with actors and singers, because a lot of artists are very sensitive. He really encourages us to explore and experiment on our own.”
The idea of mixing sex, swearing, and song seems to evoke South Park more than Madame Butterfly. However, composer Richard Thomas’ treatment of opera is far from dismissive. “There is definitely some mocking of opera…but in order to mock, you really have to understand the genre,” says Howard, a fourth-year voice student at U of T’s Faculty of Music. “He has a wonderful command of classical composition. Some of the music is more contemporary…but there are fugues and there are really intense counterpoints, and choral settings that are very complex. And so he does knock opera, but he really goes all in and totally understands the form. I think that’s what makes it a successful satire.”
But it’s not just opera that Springer sweeps off its pedestal. The show’s previous productions in London and New York inspired massive protests for its not-so-subtle comparison of prominent Judeo-Christian figures as petty narcissists willing to literally poop their pants to get the attention of the masses. However Howard points out that the purpose of this plot point “is not to be jerks—it’s not to say, ‘Jesus is a shit.’ It’s to put them in a new light, and say, ‘We have to question these figures that people trust without caution.’”
Although it may not be for everyone, Howard encourages skeptics to take a chance on the play. “I’m hoping that lots of different kinds of people come to it. I think it’s really important that we get an audience whom we can challenge.”
