The Nose, opera review: An exuberant, riotous show with a racy, cacophonous score

In Shostakovich’s opera based on a Gogol story, a pompous bureaucrat by the name of Kovalov, waking up to find his nose is missing, takes to the streets of St Petersburg in search of it. Rarely has the expression “follow your nose” seemed more apropos. His appendage meanwhile takes on an identity of its own: an outsize schnozzle that can run, dance, be worshipped like a golden calf and hunted.

This is the Australian director Barrie Kosky’s first production for the Royal Opera and he creates a characteristically exuberant, riotous show that combines surreal farce with social commentary. Every one of the 77 characters featured (sung by 30 singers plus chorus and dancers), except for Kovalov, has a pantomime nose (modelled on Barbra Streisand with a touch of Nazi anti-Semitic cartoon, according to Kosky). There are Keystone Cops sequences (mirroring Shostakovich’s whirling galops and polkas), silly walks and a hilarious, virtuoso tap dance for ten noses, from each of which protrudes a pair of hairy legs.

Shostakovich’s racy, cacophonous score (superbly played under Ingo Metzmacher’s confident baton) hurtles by, referencing Stravinsky, Berg, circus, vaudeville and more besides. Cinematic montage is a feature of score and production alike. Indeed, Klaus Grünberg’s unitary set resembles a vast lens through which we view the various urban locations (streets, cathedral, Kovalov’s apartment) in abstract form.

Kosky’s endlessly inventive production, together with David Pountney’s vivid translation, offers clues as to meaning. Kovalov is a heartless slob who himself suffers morale-sapping abuse (castration anxiety is inevitably signalled) when deprived of a feature that defines him. The institutions he looks to for support (the police and the press) are all corrupt, but Kovalov himself learns nothing from his experience. The nightmare is also an existential one, with Kafkaesque overtones.

For all the imagination and vitality, it’s possible to feel that two hours of this madcap horseplay, with no interval, is just too much. There’s not enough genuine substance, while psychological or socio-critical interest, and even the humour, is stretched too thinly.

Martin Winkler’s Kovalov is a tour de force. Other standouts from a uniformly high-calibre cast are John Tomlinson (wonderfully sinister as Barber and Doctor), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Alexander Kravets and Rosie Aldridge.

Until Nov 9; roh.org.uk

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