British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage will pen the score with a book by the co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera, Richard Thomas. The opera will be part of the company's 2011 season.

Royal Opera House director Elaine Padmore told The Guardian, "[The opera] is not going to be tawdry; it is going to be witty, clever, thoughtful and sad. . . . It is not just a documentary about her, but a parable about celebrity and what it does to people."

Born in November 1967, Vickie Lynn Marshall — who adopted the stage name Anna Nicole Smith — was a model and TV personality who was the 1993 Playmate of the Year. She was also embroiled in a lengthy battle with the family of her late husband, J. Howard Marshall, who was 63 years her senior. Smith died Feb. 8, 2007, from an accidental overdose shortly after giving birth to her daughter. Her son had also died just months earlier from a drug overdose.