“The Nose” At The Met: A Must-See
If the right wing wanted to eliminate the “liberal” cultural elite in this country, they could have done worse than drop a bomb last night on the Metropolitan Opera, where William Kentridge’s gloriously visual new production of Shostakovich’s “The Nose” was given its second performance. Tout le monde was there, to witness Valery Gergiev conduct the Met orchestra in a stirring account of this emphatically unlyrical 1930 work and to listen to Paulo Szot, a Tony-award winner for “South Pacific,” act his heart out as the piece’s main character, Kovalyov. Anyone who loves art or things Russian should high-tail it to the Met for one of the remaining four performances. “The Nose” will be the Met’s radio broadcast tomorrow, but you’ll not get any of the visual flavor. I don’t know why this production isn’t being done in live HD broadcast to theatres around the world.
