God has a golden nose. Otherwise he is penniless and, above all, powerless when it comes to helping the official Kovalyov in his distress. Shrugging his shoulders, he disappears through a door in the blue backdrop decorated with little white clouds and leaves the field to his son Jesus, a doctor. Its golden tine is a bit larger than that of the Heavenly Father. He also carries a heavy, golden cross that he lovingly polishes while preaching selfless charity.
One morning, according to Nicolai Gogol’s story “The Nose”, the literary basis for Dmitri Shostakovich’s first opera of the same name, Kovalyov woke up and his nose was gone. For two acts he is on the road in a panic, searching for his olfactory organ. It has become independent and struts to a man-high height and in the State Councilor’s costume across the Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg.
In his surrealistic social satire, Gogol shows the inhumanity of the tsarist authoritarian and surveillance state, and caricatures the arrogance of the smug Kovalyov, who carries his nose so high that it begins to take on a life of its own. Shostakovich builds on this in post-tsarist Russia, which was shaken by world war, civil war and increasing state terror under Stalin. Shostakovich composes a corrupt, idiotic society full of caricatures, physically and mentally mutilated cowards. The score is full of mockery, sharp wit and brutal drasticity, assembling circus music and offbeat chorales, ridiculous marches, rough polkas, fugues, waltzes and balalaika folklore into a cubist painting of social madness. But behind every punchline lurks violence.
Not only the socialist system of informers, but also the post-reunification capitalism are commented on in Dresden
Director Peter Konwitschny lets comedy and bloody seriousness constantly counteract each other. His staging at the Dresden Semperoper provokes the audience to laugh again and again – it is full of cruelty. During the prologue two secret service agents in black leather coats appear who will torture, beat and bully people in the following scenes. But the picture-book colorfulness of the scene and the silent-film-like exaggerated characterization turn the story into an absurdity.
Like doll’s houses, the rooms rise from the depths and sink again. This also applies to the barber’s house, who finds a nose in his bread and wants to throw it into the Neva, the prison cell in which he is beaten up by the secret police to the rhythm of a percussion ensemble, as well as Kovalev’s room, the police station and the one lined with newspapers Editorial office, where he searches in vain for help from his embarrassing situation. The nose-searching Kovalyov wanders back and forth on the empty chessboard and is forced by the spies to complete a degrading hurdle and obstacle course.
In Dresden, a consistently concise, playful ensemble of singers convinced, conductor Petr Popelka animated the Staatskapelle to a light-footed, transparent play full of laconicism and wit, which in some places would have benefited from a little more speed, escalation and drasticity. And the baritone Bo Skovhus fills the motivically jagged parlando of the Kovalev part with lively, characteristic expression. In addition, he jumps and dances, wriggles, crawls and crawls across the stage in bizarre exaggeration like a mixture of Charlie Chaplin and Pan Tau.
At the height of his desperation, at the end of the second act, his unhappiness erupts in a melodically sweeping lament. Kolwaljov invokes God. Then Kovalyov shoots himself in the head to heaven, where neither God nor Jesus can help him. Finally, the devil gives him a raven-black nose. This is not the case with either Gogol or Shostakovich, but as a criticism of religion it fits well into Konwitschny’s all-round satirical society. Because not only the socialist informer system, but also the post-reunification capitalism is commented on here, when the colorfully dressed people linger in front of a wall with supermarket discount posters, while the People’s Police only have glitter ammunition in their cannons. Unanimous cheers.