Bright Lights, Big Ideas
Forget all the others. You need to read this review of The Nose. [New York Observer]
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The review is erudite, but it’s sad that he mentions the music only once, and glancingly at that. You can’t have good opera without music, sorry! Good theater maybe…
I’m glad I’m not the only reader who kept wondering when he planned to mention ANYTHING about the singing. Never, obviously.
Who conducted it btw?
The cast was?
Ah well never mind, I’m up to speed on the history of Met Titles.
that nose kind of looks like a scrotum.
Very interesting observations. But this part makes no logical sense:
“This post-history is prefigured in the opera’s final act, with its threatening mob and repressive policemen.”
Shostakovich in 1928 had no glimmering of what was to befall him a few years later, nor what was to befall William Kentridge and the RSA (which is the context leading up to this assertion.
Threatening mobs and repressive policemen were not solely token of the future in Russia in 1928 but of the recent past, the “War Communism” period and the two revolutions of 1917 and that 10f 1905 and the whole history stretching back beyond KHOVANSHCHINA and BORIS GODUNOV.
It is Kentridge, not Shostakovih, who introduces the indubitable foreahdowing of Stalinist horrors into this fine production.
But good work, ZW!
“the woman next to me kept futzing with the buttons on her Met Titles, expecting them to give her a more complete text”
This is rather unclear. Are the Met Titles used (duplicating the projected texts) or aren’t they?
The Met Titles are available, but redundant.
By implication that means Chereau’s ‘From the House of the Dead’ is not
‘truly memorable’. WTF!
Yeah, that sentence kind of ruined it for me, and there’s so much good stuff in the rest of the review.
Here’s his review of the Janácek. He thinks the opera is “dramatically inert.”
With sincere apologies for clogging up the Trouble in Tahiti/Quiet time page -- here is some absurdity from the magnificent Christoph Waltz
It isn’t really a review of the MET’s The Nose production but an article on the uses of text visually on stage. And even there, Mr. Woolfe bounces around wildly between a woman clicking her METitles button and a slur on supertitles in general as provincial in the context of an overview of METitle history. By any standard, this article is badly organized.
I’m delighted he appreciates Mr. Kentridge’s work which I’m very much looking forward to seeing this Saturday. But a review of The Nose this isn’t; it ignores conductor, orchestra, singers, how performers use all that text, and Mr. Kentridge as director. The performing arts are highly collaborative activities. I think I’m going to The Nose to do more than read the costumes.
And Mr. Woolfe: the ONLY MEMORABLE PRODUCTION of the last decade? That decade began with a Die Frau ohne Schatten by another director/designer who did it all, one whose sudden death shocked opera lovers who were heartened to hear that the MET was in discussion with him on doing a new RING. That production and that artist were truly memorable. Perhaps a little homework before your next “review.”
Zack didn’t say “decade,” he said “season.” So you can get off your high horse about how the Met actually did something interesting 10 years ago.
And I personally disagree about that Frau production, which has been somewhat romanticized by the untimely death of its director. Tragically short-lived though he was, while he was alive he ran out of ideas about a quarter of an hour before the end of the second act, just after the Ballet of the Psylocybin Mushrooms.
And finally, as someone who writes the occasional review myself, I have to tell you that the only part of the job that is drudgery is ticking off the laundry list of all the things that have to be mentioned (“The debuting Dolly Levi’s Berta grumbled amusingly, and veteran Barnaby Tucker’s Ambrogio sneezed with gusto. Curtains were raised and lowered with efficiency by company stalwart Minnie Fay.”)
Zack wrote about what he found interesting and exciting, and I think he did a great job of expressing why he found The Nose such. Some of you I have to say sound like Perez Hilton commenters the day after the Academy Awards whining, “but what about FARRAH???!!?!?!”
When I re-read Paragraph #5 it sure looked like “decade” to me.
Two different contexts: “greatest” vs. “memorable.” I certainly think it’s arguable that the SATYAGRAHA production is “greater” (a subjective term anyway) than that precious disco FRAU.
The ‘truly memorable’ comment ended the article. It’s zinger. It hurt.
The laundry list is indeed the dullest thing to write (and to read) in opera criticism. If the anti-Woolfe contingent has a point, it’s that much of the Observer review could have described a production of a straight play. There isn’t much insight into how Kentridge has illuminated Shostakovich. But not would there have been if he had mentioned every principal by name, with a pretty little adjective applied to each.
Still, I’d also like to chime in with my surprise at the (unintended?) back of the hand to Chereau and HOTD.
But nor would there have been… [sorry]
Zack and I didn’t agree about House of the Dead but I can see some point to his (minority) opinion. The Chereau production was beautifully detailed but very intimate and so perhaps not ideally appropriate to a space as vast as the Met. The Kentridge is on a larger, bolder scale that arguably is a better fit for a giant auditorium.
I think some of this also comes down to taste in production style. The Chereau is very serious indeed, and the Kentridge is more openly entertaining. Obviously some of this difference in quality derives from the material, but I think if you imagine what a Chereau Nose might look like (and compare that to a hypothetical Kentridge House of the Dead), you can see the differing intentions of the directors.
I’m overjoyed to have both these productions at the Met, and to have them in the same season is like a dream come true. This is why La Cieca remains pro-Gelb despite the minor and major hiccups of this season (casting, e.g.).
I would add “Muti leading a Verdi opera from the pit” to my own personal dream-come-true list, even if the production itself fell short.
La Cieca,
The only one sounding half-hysterical is frankly you-
particularly in your defenses and “pro” stances. Go on, keep telling youself…
If members feel as if someone has not touched upon some salient aspect in a review, so be it. You yourself encourage it and your touchiness is out of character. For your feathers to get ruffled so is unbecoming to you. As for your declarations of loyalty, you go Tony…
maddalena, La Cieca’s only possible response to that piece of lèse majesté is: “Donna, signora, son io ed in mia casa!”
MonstryNosty,
Sure, va bene, la donna e en sua casa… I do not dispute her right to say what she pleases at all. But cara La Cieca has, as of late, shown such fine manners, cut such a “bella figura” in her responses and reviews and then snap!
I think this is a well-written and well-argued review of the staging but it cannot be considered a complete review of the performance if it ignores the music entirely. I’m surprised that our doyenne is lumping the music in the “laundry list of all the things that have to be mentioned”. I don’t know if this is the Observer’s official review of the production or just an opinion piece. If it’s the former, then it has failed (engaging though it may be).
La Cieca’s going to apologize for misleading everyone. She called this a review; Zack and the Observer didn’t. What should have been said was “Forget all the others. You need to read this criticism about The Nose.”
I have to say, though, that I expected a little better of the ensuing discussion than incessant hair-splitting about genre. We finally get a good, smart writer who is interested in opera, and how do we respond? “You can hardly call that a review, I mean really!”
“Really!”
I tried to insert a “snort” in my last comment but it disappeared. So much for my attempt at wit.
I agree with your sentiment, La Cieca, about Zack being a “good, smart writer who is interested in opera”. That is something to celebrate considering what we usually get.
We finally get a good, smart writer who is interested in opera.
I’m sure La Cieca means another good, smart writer. Surely she wouldn’t exclude her own assistant, dresser, and all-around dogsbody JJ, who has a little gig going at another NYC paper.
“Ye’re new to these parts, sin’cha, pardner?”
Obviously, Z.W. is covering certain aspects of the production, and it’s clear that a fully inclusive review is not his intention. I’m very grateful for his articles which often bring up important points intelligently and at greater length than we sometimes get elsewhere.
Yes – I’d call this an ‘essay’, rather than a review.
I’ll listen now, and look forward to the video…
Interesting review but it is mostly about the production. It is great to have a satisfactory production for an opera for a change, but there is also music.
Because I haven’t seen or heard The Nose I hesitate to jump in, but I found the review fascinating. If The Nose is about identity among bureaucrats functioning in a regime (tyrannical or otherwise)it certainly makes sense to compare that identity with the identity of the regime putting on The Nose. And if the production centers around text it also makes sense to compare that production with the way the current and past regimes of the MET have handled and understood themselves in relation to “text” in a performance. In some ways this review functions like good book reviews; one can look up the cast/table of contents in any number of ways. What matters is what the performance/book is all about.