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[Met Performance] CID:353395

Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production

The Nose
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, March 5, 2010
Broadcast

Debut : Paulo Szot, Andrey Popov, Gordon Gietz, William Kentridge, Sabine Theunissen, Greta Goiris, Urs Schönebaum, Luc De Wit, Catherine Meyburgh, Grigory Soloviov, Sergei Skorokhodov, Brian Kontes, Jeffrey Behrens, Vassily Gorshkov







The Nose received six performances this season
The Nose is a co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, and the Opéra National de Lyon, France.
Note: Andrey Popov was billed as Andrei Popov until 10/11/2010
Boradcast live on Sirius and XM Metropolitan Opera Radio
Streamed at metopera.org
Production photos of The Nose by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

FUNDING:
Production gift of Frederick Iseman
Additional funding by The Richard J. Massey Foundation for the Arts and Sciences and the National Endowment for the Arts

Review 1:

Review of David Shengold in the June 2010 issue of OPERA NEWS

The Met premiere of "The Nose" proved a great success, thanks largely to the aesthetic vision of director William Kentridge and the dynamism of conductor Valery Gergiev.

Shostakovich's "Nos" ("The Nose"), a musically challenging, linguistically dense piece set by its twenty-one-year-old composer on a famous tale by Nikolai Gogol, seemed a risky proposition for the Met's vast spaces. Yet its company premiere on March 5 proved a great success, thanks largely to the aesthetic vision of South African artist William Kentridge and the dynamism of conductor Valery Gergiev. That Gergiev excels in rhythmic, heavily percussive scores is hardly news in New York, but his achievement with the spiky, at times circus-like score stands among his finest local achievements. (Credit surely must also accrue to the production's six assistant conductors.) "The Nose" presents particular challenges to the brass that were well surmounted.

Kentridge's operatic work has been seen locally at BAM, but this impressive, well-thought-out show marked his Met debut, along with those of his entire production team - associate director Luc de Wit, co-set designer Sabine Theunissen, costume designer Greta Goiris and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. This collective created a look based on early Soviet Constructivism, with angular, dynamic shapes on set and clothes elements and a white, black and red palette. Above all else, text was placed in the foreground - collages of newspaper articles, lists,

Mayakovskian advertising devices and slogans in Russian (transliterated and Cyrillic), English and some punning combinations ("Another kheppi ending"). Video footage - brilliant transmogrifying pictographs as well as footage of both Shostakovich at the keyboard and Anna Pavlova dancing (her head supplanted by a nose) - was a constant. As in 2008's "Satyagraha" at the Met, it made sense to project the translated text on the set.

Thus, Gogol's Petersburg of the 1830s transmuted largely to Leningrad of the 1920s. This doesn't make "literal" sense, given a story so concerned with the Tsarist Table of Rank (the lead figure, Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, uses the equivalent military rank of "Major" to impress

women and is startled when his nose becomes not only a separate person but one of higher rank), in which an important scene takes place during a cathedral service. (The Kazan Cathedral, shuttered in 1917, was in fact not pictured, but the service was.) Yet it suited Shostakovich's music and allowed Kentridge to allude to the Stalinist police state - well under way even in the experimental 1920s - soon to befall Russia, hobble Shostakovich and produce a deadlier brand of absurdism than Gogol could ever have foreseen.

"The Nose" bears the imprint of "Wozzeck" and, like Berg's work, has telling music in its interludes, which at times here were overwhelmed by the visuals, as if Kentridge feared that audiences could not just listen. (He may, alas, be right.) But in sum this staging proved an extraordinary vision, very well carried out.

Broadway matinee idol Paulo Szot seemed in advance odd casting for Kovalyov, a jerk who thinks he's God's gift. But Szot, an adroit stage figure, made the character vulnerable and even rather sympathetic, faring reasonably well with the Russian phonetics. By Met standards, his baritone is pleasant rather than remarkable, and he worked hard under heavy orchestration, but his was certainly a commendable house debut.

Another legacy of "Wozzeck" is the screamy, top-of-the-staff tenor writing. Three Russian debutants really delivered - the phenomenal Andrei Popov (Police Inspector), plus Sergei Skorokhodov and Vassily Gorshkov, both in multiple cameos. Adam Klein (Yaryzhkin) kept pace, but debutant Gordon Gietz (the Nose), though phrasing well, sounded rather tired. Those indefatigable bass scene-stealers Vladimir Ognovenko and Gennady Bezzubenkov also enlivened multiple roles: idiomatic Russian makes a big difference in this kind of score. Two promising young singers who have shone elsewhere (tenor Jeffrey Behrens and bass-baritone Brian Kontes) also made their debuts in ensemble parts. Erin Morley - as a girl praying in vocalise and Kovalyov's potential fiancée - offered the loveliest sounds of this rewarding evening.

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Met careers

• Valery Gergiev [Conductor]
• Paulo Szot [Kovalyov]
• Andrey Popov [Police Inspector]
• Gordon Gietz [The Nose]
• William Kentridge [Production]
• Sabine Theunissen [Set Designer]
• Greta Goiris [Costume Designer]
• Urs Schönebaum [Lighting Designer]
• Luc De Wit [Associate Director]
• Catherine Meyburgh [Video Compositor & Editor]
• Vladimir Ognovenko [Ivan Yakovlevich/Khosrev-mirza]
• Claudia Waite [Praskovya Osipovna/Pretzel Vendor]
• Grigory Soloviov [Constable/Caretaker/Policeman/Newcomer]
• Sergei Skorokhodov [Ivan/Porter/Policeman/Gentleman/Student]
• Erin Morley [Podtochina's daughter/Female Voice]
• Tony Stevenson [Male Voice/Policeman/Gentleman/Student]
• Brian Kontes [Footman/Caretaker/Policeman/Gentleman/Acquaintance]
• Gennady Bezzubenkov [Doctor/Cabby]
• James Courtney [Newspaper Clerk]
• Ricardo Lugo [Countess's Footman]
• Kevin Burdette [Caretaker/Policeman/Gentleman/Lady's Son/Acquaintance]
• David Crawford [Caretaker/Policeman/Gentleman/Student]
• Jeremy Galyon [Caretaker/Son/Student]
• Brian Frutiger [Policeman/Gentleman/Student]
• Jeffrey Behrens [Policeman/Old Man/Student]
• Philip Cokorinos [Father/Caretaker/Dandy]
• Maria Gavrilova [Mother]
• Dennis Petersen [Son/Newcomer]
• Vassily Gorshkov [Pyotr Fedorovitch/Distinguished Colonel/Student]
• LeRoy Lehr [Ivan Ivanovitch/Student]
• Theodora Hanslowe [Matron]
• Christopher Schaldenbrand [Coachman/Caretaker/Someone]
• Adam Klein [Yaryzhkin]
• Barbara Dever [Mme. Podtochina]
• Philip Horst [Caretaker/Policeman/Black Marketeer/Lady's Son]
• Michael Myers [Policeman/Gentleman/Dandy/Acquaintance]
• Kathryn Day [Respectable Lady]