Lady Gaga Announces New ‘Chromatica Ball’ Concert Film
Attention Little Monsters: Cancel all your plans for May 25.
In a Wednesday surprise, Lady Gaga unveiled the trailer for her HBO concert special, Gaga Chromatica Ball, which will debut on the network at 8 p.m. that night and stream on Max. It will be the first official footage from her 20-date 2022 summer stadium tour, dubbed The Chromatica Ball. True to form, her fans rejoiced at the news on X, with one fan posting, “OMGGGG YAAAS, FINALLY!!!!! I’M CRYING.”
The trailer features Lady Gaga in futuristic mode, sporting sharp-shouldered black and metallic ensembles that look straight out of the Star Wars cinematic universe — in a good way. At one point, she covers her face with a black claw as the crowd goes wild. She filmed the special to a packed house at L.A.’s Dodger Stadium in September 2022, Variety reports. The song roster includes her greatest hits “Poker Face,” “Bad Romance” and “Shallow,” her Oscar-winning anthem from A Star Is Born.
The 38-year-old vocal powerhouse released her dance-pop Chromatica album at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when big, fun dance parties were few and far between. Her Chromatica Ball gave her the chance to finally perform her new material live and for a large audience.
Hello, Harley Quinn! See Lady Gaga in 'Joker' Sequel: 1st Look Set Photos
These days, Lady Gaga has focused on her career in movies. She plays Harley Quinn opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the Joker: Folie à Deux, set to release this October. Previously, she headlined House of Gucci with Adam Driver, playing an ambitious fashion wife with murder on her mind. Meanwhile, she scored an Oscar nomination in 2023 for writing the ‘80s-inspired rock ballad “Hold My Hand” for Top Gun: Maverick. When she performed the song at the Academy Awards, she wore plain clothes and next to no makeup.
But as the HBO footage teases, she returns to her theatrical roots — including multiple costume changes — in Gaga Chromatica Ball, which should offer the first behind-the-scenes glimpse of her creative process since the 2017 documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two that chronicled the making of her fifth studio record, Joanne as well as the prep for her massive Super Bowl Half Time performance earlier that year.
In that film, Gaga (real name: Stefani Germanotta) opened up about her battle with chronic pain, her problems with former fiancé Taylor Kinney and her past feud with Madonna, who once called Gaga’s music “reductive.”
“She wouldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that I was reductive,” Gaga said in Five Foot Two, adding ““Telling me you think I’m a piece of s–t through the media? It’s like a guy passing me a note through his friend.”
She said that Madonna, her idol “as an Italian who grew up in New York,” had apologized to her, though she confessed she wasn’t sure if she could trust her again.
Birthday Girl! Bask in Lady Gaga’s Wildest Fashion Looks of All Time
Last month, Gaga sparked engagement rumors when she was photographed walking through West Hollywood with a huge diamond ring on her left ring finger.
She is currently dating Michael Polansky, to whom she was first linked in December 2019. She and Polansky, the CEO of The Parker Foundation, a global health nonprofit, quarantined together during the COVID-19 lockdown four years ago.
Before linking up with Polansky, Gaga was engaged to Chicago Fire’s Kinney from 2015 to 2016 and to Christian Carino from 2017 to 2019. She briefly hinted at her breakup from Carino, a talent agent, while performing “Someone to Watch Over Me” in Las Vegas over the summer of 2019.
“Last time I sang this song, I had a ring on my finger, so it’ll be different this time,” she told concertgoers.
