Opera
01.16.10
Metropolitan Opera, Russian opera, satire
by Chris Vroom
This spring the Metroplitan Opera will present "The Nose", the Shostakovich opera inspired by Nikolai Gogol's 1936 short story about a man whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own. William Kentridge, the South African artist guiding the adaption, see the nose as a metaphor for the parts of our selves in conflict - when the protoganist catches up with his errant olafactory organ, it refuses to return to its former position. The opera is a particularly satirical, particularly Russian work. When it premiered in Russia in 1930, the Rusian Association of Proletarian Musicians deemed it "too formalist" and it closed after 17 performances and was not shown again in Russian until 1974. Kentridge, well known for
