Opera reviews: The Nose and Don Giovanni

3 / 5 stars
The Nose

SHOSTAKOVICH'S The Nose gave rise to his first run-in with the Soviet authorities.

Opera, reviews, The Nose, Don GiovanniPH

Shostakovich’s The Nose gave rise to his first run-in with the Soviet authorities

After its premiere in 1930 the 22-year-old composer was attacked by, among others, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. Based on Nikolai Gogol’s satirical tale of a man who wakes up to find his nose missing, the plot was deemed subversive and the music discordant. 

Australian director Barrie Kosky, whose gloriously irreverent take on Handel’s oratorio Saul was the hit of Glyndebourne Festival last year, brings similar tactics to Shostakovich’s opera. 

In a relentless two hours with no interval, Kosky crams in a mass of fast-moving, choreographed chaos.

The opera begins with drunken barber Ivan Iakovlevitch (John Tomlinson) giving pompous Collegiate Assessor Kovalev (Austrian bass-baritone Martin Winkler) a ferociously close shave. 

Next day the barber discovers a nose in the bread his wife Praskovya (Rosie Aldridge) has baked. Meanwhile, Kovalev wakes with a hangover and finds his nose has gone missing. He tracks down the nose, which has attracted a crowd of followers, but it claims to be of a higher rank than he and refuses to return to his face. 

The ensuing chase includes a chorus of tap-dancing human-sized noses and a troupe of ginger-bearded male dancers in tutus. Nose is finally trapped by the District Police Inspector (Alexander Kravets), beaten down to its original size and returned to Kovalov. 

Conductor Ingo Metzmacher draws an energised performance from the Royal Opera House Orchestra and the Chorus is in cracking form. 

Covent Garden has reduced the price to attract a younger than usual audience, who were hooting with laughter on the first night.

The Nose opera scenePH

The opera is based on Nikolai Gogol’s satirical tale

Jonathan Kent’s 2010 production of Don Giovanni, revived by Lloyd Wood, returns for Glyndebourne On Tour with Australian baritone Duncan Rock in the title role. Designer Paul Brown’s mausoleum-like cube, opening out to reveal the interior of Don Giovanni’s house, is imaginative though the revival lighting is too dark. 

Kent updates the opera to southern Europe in the mid-1950s, with a retro-blonde Zerlina in lace wedding frock and Don Giovanni in white dinner-jacket and shades.

Rock is an unremittingly violent Giovanni, first seen smashing in the head of Donna Anna’s father the Commendatore as he escapes from her bedroom. Brandon Cedel as his cynical servant Leporello runs a sideline in paparazzo shots.

Ana Maria Labin’s Donna Anna remains an enigmatic figure but there seems little interaction between her and fiancé Don Ottavio, sung by Anthony Gregory, and his exquisite aria Il Mio Tesoro, coming after Donna Anna’s assurance that she still loves him, has been omitted.

The strongest characters here are Bozidar Smiljanic’s jealous Masetto, who torches Don Giovanni’s palazzo, and Louise Alder’s drama queen Zerlina. 

Magdalena Molendowska as a beautifully sung Donna Elvira is required to wear a clown’s make-up and wig that she should have rejected out of hand and the final scene, as Andrii Goniukov’s Commendatore rises from the tomb to drag Giovanni to Hell, is suitably Gothic.

VERDICT: 3/5

Shostakovich’s The Nose Royal Opera House, London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7304 4000/roh.org.uk; £5-£100)

Mozart’s Don Giovanni Glyndebourne On Tour Lewes, East Sussex until November 4, then touring (Tickets: 01273 815000/glyndebourne.com; £15-£68)

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