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Let's face it, only an opera could truly capture the fights, the passions and the over-the-top emotions of the women who built Bravo, the Real Housewives. Which is one reason why, on Monday, October 20, The Real Housewives of New York City: An Opera will receive a one-night-only concert debut at The Cutting Room. And while there’s no shortage of Bravo-inspired parodies in the world, this one arrives with serious musical theater chops, a Juilliard pedigree or two, and Oh, Mary! scene-stealer Hannah Solow channeling none other than Ramona Singer herself.
Yes, that Ramona Singer—the Pinot Grigio-pouring, wide-eyed, barely-contained burst of Upper East Side id. For Solow, fresh off her gleefully unhinged turn in Cole Escola’s Oh, Mary!, it’s a dream role; her knack for riding chaos right to the brink make her the perfect muse for a project that treats Bravo’s high drama with bel canto reverence.
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The story, by composer-lyricist Sharon Kenny and bookwriter Kirsten Guenther, turns Tinsley Mortimer’s tabloid-tinted fairy tale into a fantasia. On her Plaza Hotel wedding day, Tinsley (Christine Taylor Price) takes a dramatic tumble down the aisle and lands in Dorinda's Bluestone Manor, now reimagined as a glittering bridal purgatory. There, she’s haunted (and possibly helped) by ghosts of Housewives past: Countess Luann (Lauren Blackman), Dorinda Medley (Stephanie Gibson), Sonja Morgan (Jessie Hooker Bailey), and of course, Ramona. Tony nominee Barbara Walsh plays Tinsley’s mother, Dale Mercer, while Colin Hanlon appears as a divinely omnipresent Andy Cohen. Frank DiLella will narrate.
Directed by Mary Birnbaum with musical direction by Adam Laird (Beetlejuice), the show’s creative team shares a pedigree more Lincoln Center than BravoCon. Still, this project was born from deep fandom (and maybe a martini or two). After performing together at Feinstein’s at the Regency (a site forever immortalized in Housewives lore), Kenny and Guenther found themselves in lockdown, bingeing old episodes and joking about writing “something about our friends.” From there, the RHONY Opera took shape as a love letter, both satirical and sincere, to the women who made “mention it all” a mantra.
If Oh, Mary! proved that downtown absurdism could thrive on Broadway, The Real Housewives of New York City: An Opera might prove that reality TV can be grand opera material, complete with high society, high drama and yes, high C’s.
The Real Housewives of New York City: An Opera plays October 20 at The Cutting Room (44 E. 32nd St.). Doors open at 6pm; tickets ($22.68) are available at rhonyopera.com.