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Jerry Springer The Opera

Submitted by Mark Leicester on January 10, 2005 - 03:28.

By now I expect that news of the BBC's controversial screening of Jerry Springer The Opera has reached New Zealand's shores. Here is my account of the controversy, direct from my living room in North London.

BBC2. Saturday night at 10pm. It's after the watershed but I've never seen so many disclaimers and warnings. Press reports filter in of hundreds of Christian protesters rallying outside BBC buildings. On the other hand I have friends who have seen the show live, survived, and even enjoyed it. What was I in for? I comforted myself with a glass or two of Frascati and a nod to H.G. Wells' "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo". Would I wish I had written it myself?

Before the main event the BBC screened a few short "pre-concert talk" type documentaries. This was instructive viewing for those of us who didn't know anything about Jerry Springer, his show—never watched it, honest—or the origins of Jerry Springer The Opera.

The show is in two acts. The first act takes place on the set of a typical Jerry Springer show. Act One begins with an "Overtly-ture". The audience (chorus) is ushered in. The warm-up man instructs the audience in the Springer show etiquette: no heckling, no throwing things, no fighting, say "awwww" for the good guys, and "booo" for the bad guys. The audience gets impatient: "where the f**k is Jerry?". Jerry appears.

Jerry's first guest is a man named Dwight who has a secret he needs to get off his chest before he can marry his fiancée. His fiancée's name is Peaches. It turns out he is seeing someone else: Peaches' best friend Zandra. Then it turns out Dwight is seeing someone else: a "chick with a dick" named Tremont. An onstage fight ensues.

Jerry's "inner Valkyrie" intervenes to question Jerry's motives in pursuing the public humiliation of his guests. She is sent away (mysteriously the Valkyrie never reappears); the guests will do anything to be on TV.

Ad break.

Jerry's second guest is a man named Montel who also has a secret for his wife-to-be. Andrea discovers that Montel wants to be her baby, in the sense that he wants to dress up in diapers and for added sexual excitement "poop his pants". Baby Jane, who helps Montel with his predilection, comes onstage singing "This is my Jerry Springer moment". An onstage fight ensues...

Ad break. Andrea ponders for a moment: "I wanna sing something beautiful, I wanna sing something positive". Jerry has her removed from the stage. Jerry contemplates over a cigar. Jerry's warm-up man has some unwelcome comment and is fired.

Jerry's third guest is a woman named Shawntel who wants to tell her hillbilly husband-to-be Chucky of her passion for pole dancing. The Ku Klux Klan arrive. An onstage fight ensues, but this time Jerry is shot in the chest by his sacked warm-up man.

Act Two is the source of much of the controversy, and charges of blasphemy. Jerry is confronted by the shattered lives of his guests, who just "eat, excrete and watch TV". The devil, Jerry's warm-up man, arrives to demand Jerry's soul. Jerry is forced to host one more show, where the guests are the Devil, Adam, Eve, Jesus, Mary and God. In Springer-style the Devil demands an apology for being cast out of heaven while Jesus sings "talk to the hand". The Devil responds with "F**k you" in a Handelian melisma of disturbing proportions. Mary arrives, accusing Jesus of not caring for her after his crucifixion. Jesus admits he is "a little gay". God arrives lamenting, "It ain't easy being me". Realising the need for reconciliation after conflict, Jerry suceeds in reconciling heaven and hell. To the strains of "Jerry Eleison" he is led back to earth to die.

All this is very literally in the name of opera, but is it really an opera? It sounds like a show. The singers sing, belt and falsetto their way through the numbers, resorting to operatic presentation only if the character (e.g. the Valkyrie) demands it. The singers are accompanied by a band of eight very versatile musicians, not an orchestra as such. So, are we seeing a renovation of the word "opera"? Interestingly the BBC doesn't seem to make any distinction, a spokesperson noted that, "early indications suggested Jerry Springer The Opera was watched by twice the number of 16-34 year-olds than normally expected for opera." BBC2 will debate the issues raised by Jerry Springer The Opera this Thursday at 7pm, but I doubt that the debate will be dominated by questions stemming from the use of the word "opera" in the title. Does it matter? As Jerry Springer said himself after seeing the show, "I don't object to anything in it. The whole show is tongue-in-cheek, so what is the problem?"

If you want to hear excerpts of Jerry Springer The Opera for yourself then you can point your browser at Jerry Springer The Opera and click the "Music" link (you will need to have Macromedia Flash installed on your computer to view the site). Let me know what you think!

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