William Kentridge Animates Shostakovich’s The Nose

When it came to reimagining Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Nose for New York’s Metropolitan Opera, producers had their eyes on South African artist William Kentridge, best known for his collages and animated drawings. On March 5, before the curtain rose on the opera, which centers around a bureaucrat in St. Petersburg who wakes up to discover his nose is missing, the audience was greeted by a collage in place of crimson velvet covering the stage. Kentridge’s collage, a collection of portraits of historical figures, political slogans, and maps, set the scene and tone for the opera. Though the collage does go up, as the story unfolds, a screen behind the characters plays nonstop animation featuring the missing giant nose, but they don’t distract from the action. “Kentridge’s zany displays of visual imagination manage to enhance… the score,” the Associated Press wrote. “No wonder the biggest cheers at the curtain call went to him and the rest of his design team.”