THE NOSE is making its long-awaited Met debut this month, directed by William Kentridge and conducted by Valery Gergiev
The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center
Between West 62nd & 65th Sts. and Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.
March 18 & 25, $15 standing room – $375
212-362-6000
www.metoperafamily.org
Prior to the March 11 performance of THE NOSE at the Metropolitan Opera House, artist and mensch William Kentridge could be seen in the Met lobby greeting friends and fans as everyone awaited the second night of his production of THE NOSE, which had made its highly anticipated Met debut on March 5. Kentridge brings that same mensch spirit to his absurdist version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s absurdist opera, based on Nikolai Gogol’s absurdist short story about a young man who wakes up one day to discover that his nose has disappeared. The story, which deals with political hierarchy, social division, and the perils of bureaucracy, is set in 1830s St. Petersburg, but it also relates to Kentridge’s native South Africa under apartheid. Kentridge’s multimedia production features black-and-white animation, lofty sets that suddenly appear well off the ground or are dragged around by characters, and a Russian constructivist collage that serves as a backdrop for much of the action.
Kentridge, who designed the stunning sets with Sabine Theunissen, infuses the opera with the same playful humor evident in Shostakovich’s controversial score, which ranges from classical to folk to polka and includes a three-minute percussion intermezzo, all under the inventive baton of Valery Gergiev. Paulo Szot, who won a Tony for his role as Emile De Becque in Lincoln Center’s production of SOUTH PACIFIC, plays the noseless Kovalyov, but it is often difficult to hear his too-soft delivery. The cast of more than seventy also includes Andrei Popov as the police inspector, Vladimir Ognovenko as barber Ivan Yakolevich, and Gordon Gietz as the Nose. The English subtitles are projected onto the bottom of the set, sometimes hard to read or blocked by the performers, although they are also occasionally blasted onto the backdrop collage in unusual ways. THE NOSE is an unconventional opera, with unconventional sets, an unconventional score, and an unconventional length, clocking in at a mere 104 minutes, and it is playing to an unconventional audience of regular opera aficionados as well as fans of Kentridge, whose work is being celebrated all over the city this month, with a retrospective at MoMA, a drawing show at Dieu Donné, screenings with live music at the World Financial Center, and other special events and appearances. Be sure to stop by Gallery Met before the show to see “Ad Hoc,” a small display of Kentridge’s preparatory sketches, notes, costume cutouts, and a three-dimensional sculpture of Shostakovich.