Picture by Iko Freese
Fortunate for us Berliners, two operas by Shostakovich graced the Komische Oper stage this season. In January, we noticed Barrie Kosky’s new manufacturing of Woman Macbeth of Mtsensk. Not solely was Kosky’s manufacturing a glossy tackle Shostakovich’s controversial work, however the singing was a few of the finest I heard all yr. Between Sean Panikkar as Sergei and Ambur Braid as Katerina, the North American sound received over Berliners. Kevin Ng’s anecdote of the screaming girl seated subsequent to him completely summarized my expertise — I used to be maybe that screaming girl!
Following his new manufacturing of Woman Macbeth, Kosky’s The Nostril returned to the Komische Oper, having first been carried out in June 2018. The Nostril is Shostakovich’s surrealist opera, the place the nostril of a high-ranking main takes on a lifetime of its personal. Whereas absurd to a contemporary viewers, the image of the nostril carried a deeper that means again within the 1830s when Nikolai Vasil’evich Gogol initially wrote the story. As dramaturg Ulrich Lenz reminds us, “in historic occasions, troopers in warfare would minimize off the noses of statues of overseas deities, in addition to these of prisoners or these killed on the battlefield, as an indication of dehumanization and humiliation.” Dehumanization and humiliation remained central tropes in Shostakovich’s refiguring of Gogol’s textual content and had been undoubtedly legible in Kosky’s staging.
The curtain opens on the barber Ivan Yakovlevich (Dimitry Ivaschenko), shaving his shopper, Platon Kuzmich Kovalyov (Günther Papendell). The sound of Yakovlevich’s single blade being rhythmically sharpened on his strop offered sonic pressure earlier than the orchestra even performed its first word. Maybe it was additionally a sonic reminder for audiences to buy their tickets for Kosky’s manufacturing of Sweeney Todd scheduled subsequent season! After a brief scene the place Kovalyov teases Yakovlevich for his foul-smelling fingers, the motion skips to the subsequent morning, the place Yakovlevich’s spouse finds a nostril within the bread dough she is kneading. We then bounce to Kovalyov in mattress along with his idiot, Ivan (Ivan Turšić), the place, after a fast comedic humping, Kovalyov realizes that his nostril is lacking. The remainder of the opera follows Kovalyov’s hunt for his nostril and his quest for help, first at a funeral, then turning to the police and the native information. The plot descends into chaos as a mob seems; extra humping ensues. Though the nostril is discovered, it can’t be reattached to Kovalyov’s face.
Kosky’s manufacturing is fittingly barren, the easy set and muted colours permitting area for the opera to face by itself with out pointless congestion. Kosky’s therapy of the orchestral interludes and choral writing particularly permits the music to take middle stage with no extraneous distractions. The viral shock issue of the manufacturing is none aside from the large tap-dancing noses. Otto Pichler’s choreography options eleven noses in a kick line, alternating between the Charleston and timesteps.
The one facet of the manufacturing I used to be not totally bought on was the costuming. Foremost, the complete solid, sans Kovalyov, wore prosthetic noses. Maybe I’m a bit scarred from the Bradley Cooper controversy (when he was criticized for sporting a prosthetic nostril when enjoying Leonard Bernstein in Maestro), however I discovered this alternative unnerving. Of the inclusion of prosthetic noses, Kosky shares, “it’s extraordinarily vital that [Kovalyov] loses one thing that everybody else has. We merely reversed that: In our model, everybody else has a big nostril, a mixture of Barbara Streisand’s nostril and an antisemitic Nazi cartoon – apart from Kovalyov.” Whereas the antisemitic caricature was on the forefront of my studying, I additionally puzzled how the prosthetic noses may need affected the vocal performances. The costumes themselves had been additionally distracting. Designer Buki Shiff was mentioned to be impressed by the 1840s, Eighteen Eighties, Twenties, and Thirties, which concurrently offered a sense of timelessness and confusion. Whereas obscuring a set time and place is often Kosky’s aim (as he maintains in his productions that the place isn’t vital, the individuals are), the costumes had been an unsuccessful try at this aim. A saving grace, Baritone Günther Papendell’s Kovalyov was completely comedic with out sacrificing vocal high quality. Even with no nostril, his resonance prevailed!
Madison Schindele
Maddie Schindele relies between NYC and Berlin and is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology. She enjoys writing about modernist German opera, incapacity, and feminist musings!
