Flamboyant and foul-mouthed, Anna Nicole makes a provocative addition to operas chronicles of bad, sad girls. Anna Nicole Smith, the Playboy model who married an octogenarian billionaire, became a grotesque star of reality TV before dying, destitute and drug-riddled, at the age of just 39. After the works 2011 premiere at the Royal Opera House, the New York Times hailed an engrossing, outrageous, entertaining and, ultimately deeply moving opera ... an improbable triumph for Covent Garden.