Comments on: Only a “Nose” I give you

By: Zerbinetta

Zerbinetta — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:24:05 +0000

The Trovatore went over fairly well. Maybe not quite up to this level of enthusiasm, but the response was generally positive. And that’s a standard rep piece.

By: kashania

kashania — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:07:58 +0000

Is this the first resoundingly successful new production to have its premiere at the Met under Gelb's reign(as opposed to the Mingella Butterfly or the Chereau House of the Dead, which had already been seen elsewhere)?

By: Dan Johnson

Dan Johnson — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:24:03 +0000

Count me among the (happily) frazzled. A certain amount of fatigue set in for me as the piece wore on—just overstimulated, I guess—and I found it a little harder to concentrate than if I’d had a breath of fresh air somewhere therein.

By: queen amahelli

queen amahelli — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:40:40 +0000

or even ‘Pick the Nose’

By: BETSY_ANN_BOBOLINK

BETSY_ANN_BOBOLINK — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:10:04 +0000

SQIAC — uttering aloud “Good. Very, very good.”

By: Scott Rose

Scott Rose — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:07:35 +0000

You might thusly have headlined your rave review:

Running Nose Top Pick!

By: mandryka

mandryka — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:02:34 +0000

Having attended both the final dress rehearsal and the premiere of The Nose, I think it is very misleading for the reviwer to say that the audience was “frazzled” by the music. I found the audience to be notably more attentive, responsive and quiet than usual. The cheering at the end bordered on the uproarious. Especially for Kentridge and his team, for whom the biggest ovations were reserved. I also think, for a number of reasons, that it was completely appropriate to present this great score uninterrupted. Bravi tutti.

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:38:19 +0000

The time when Russian composers were asked to toe the line and write Party – inspiring ‘tractor rhythm symphonies and such like’ set to encourage greater factory production and farm output. Plus, all the fostering of industrial ‘steel girder and clenched fist’ Art. I once came across a young thing trying to be ‘a such desperate thing’. By it, trying to ‘so cool’ by getting involved in far left politics. It was a bit of an uneducated ding-bat anyway, proven to me when it espoused the ‘virtues of the music of Mosolov’. Shit! ever heard some of that crap!’

Looking back: that whole era is now historical scrap metal, rusting away in dis-illusioned minds. It is like something fom two centuries ago, not one.

By: Krunoslav

Krunoslav — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:55:47 +0000

1920s, actually! Constructivism.

By: Gualtier M

Gualtier M — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:38:29 +0000

Very fun, well-written review from La Cieca’s maid, James Jorden. However, I have to dispute this sentence: “The debuting director, South African artist William Kentridge, evokes the 19th-century St. Petersburg of the story with his signature collages of newspaper clippings and old political posters.”

The original Gogol short story is set in 1836. Kentridge clearly reset the piece in the 1930′s around the time the opera was written. All of the newspapers and collages and costumes and props came from that period. Late modernist, futurist before Stalin shut that shit down.

By: Quanto Painy Fakor

Quanto Painy Fakor — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:36:58 +0000

More brilliance from JJ ! While he may be happy to be at the NY Post, they should hire him fulltime at the NYT.