PRESS RELEASE. PREMIERE "DIE NASE" on 24 October 2021

"Every man a king" is the theme of this season. In Dmitri Shostakovich's Die Nase (Nos), the first premiere of the 2021-22 season, however, it is questionable to whom the crown ultimately belongs - Kovaljov or his nose? The work itself is a grotesque nightmare about fear of loss and paranoia, about dehumanized physiognomies and falling out of the norm. And what if the nose as a sign for greatness of character were only glued on?
 
Dmitri Shostakovich's Die Nase (Nos) will premiere on Sunday, 24 October 2021, 7 pm (CEST). Under the musical direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski and staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, Boris Pinkhasovich stars as Kovaljov Platon Kusmič in the co-production with Novaya Opera Moskow. Other roles include Anton Rositskiy (The Nose), Laura Aikin (Praskovja Osipovna) and Laura Aikin (Praskovja Osipovna) und Doris Soffel (Old Lady).
The premiere will be live on the radio on BR-KLASSIK.
The performance on 27 October 2021 will be broadcast live on STAATSOPER.TV.
 
To support your work on Die Nase, we are offering a media-kit with visual, audio and film material, as well as excerpts from the program book. You can access the kit in the press section of the website starting today. Additional materials will be added until the evening of the premiere. General Manager Serge Dorny, General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, director Kirill Serebrennikov, Boris Pinkhasovich (Kovaljov Platon Kusmič) and Sergei Leiferkus (Ivan Jakovlevič) talk about the production.
 
You can use your personal login data for the press area, as you did last season, to download the media kit for Die Nase.

 

THE PIECE 
 
A nose takes on a life of its own. It leaves an embarrassing blank space in its owner's face, assumes a social position, and, in a Council of State costume, struts across the Newskji Prospect of St. Petersburg . Its defaced owner, Kovaljov, finds himself in a ludicrous hunt for his status symbol.
 
In his first opera, Die Nase (1927/28), the 21-year-old Shostakovich criticizes post-czarist Russia, wracked by world war, bloody civil war and increasing state terror. The image of a brutal society, full of physically and mentally disfigured duckers and perpetrators of violence, is musically captured in the grotesque alternation of a wide variety of stylistic levels: Circus music and Russian Orthodox church music, gallops, polkas, marches and fugues are cut opposite to each other in a cinematic drasticness. Behind the biting wit lurk fear and violence..

THE PRODUCTION 

Kirill Serebrennikov is staging the new production. He also designed the costumes with Tatyana Dolmatovskaya. The Russian director led the rehearsals from Moscow, supported by his team present in Munich. The production catches the moment of the grotesque, which was already present in Gogol's work, and seeks to walk the tightrope between comedy and tragedy. Both contemporary St.Petersburg (the setting of the scene) and the work of avant-garde artists from the time Shostakovich's opera was written, such as the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold and the painting of Sergei Luchishkin, are part of Serebrennikov's original inspiration.

 

THE CAST

Die Nase is Vladimir Jurowski's first premiere as General Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper. It is a premiere for him to collaborate with Kirill Serebrennikov. Kirill Serebrennikov began his work as a self-taught theater, opera, film, and television director and costume designer while studying physics. For works on Salome at the Stuttgart Opera and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Komische Oper Berlin he was also director outside of Russia. In 2021, he staged the new production of Parsifal at the Wiener Staatsoper. Serebrennikov was honored for his filmmaking at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Other films have been screened at the Rome, Locarno and Venice film festivals. He was nominated for the Golden Lion and the Grand Prix of Kinotavr in Sochi. Since 2012, Serebrennikov has been artistic director of the Gogol Center in Moscow.

Laura Aikin and Doris Soffel return to the Bayerische Staatsoper as part of this production. In the leading role of Kovaljov is Boris Pinkhasovich. Among the more than 30 soloists and other participating artists are ensemble members such as Sean Michael Plumb, Mirjam Mesak and Milan Siljanov as well as the members of the Opernstudio Andrew Hamilton and Theodore Platt.
 

Musical direction- Vladimir Jurowski
Staging and costumes - Kirill Serebrennikov
Co-Staging - Evgeny Kulagin
Costumes - Tatjana Dolmatovskaja
Mask - Shalva Nikvashvili
Lighting - Michael Bauer
Choir - Stellario Fagone
 
Inter alia with:
 
Kovaljov Platon Kusmič - Boris Pinkhasovich
Ivan Jakovlevič - Sergej Leiferkus
Praskovja Osipovna - Laura Aikin
Reviervorsteher der Polizei - Andrey Popov
Ivan - Sergey Skorokhodov
Die Nase - Anton Rositskiy
Lakai der Gräfin - Sean Michael Plumb
Beamter der Annoncenredaktion - Gennady Bezzubenkov
 
Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Bayerischer Staatsopernchor

PERFORMANCES & LIVESTREAM

PREMIERE
Dmitri Shostakovich
Die Nase (Nos)
Su 24 October 2021 7.00 pm (CEST)
Nationaltheater
 
LIVESTREAM
We 27 October 2021 7.00 pm (CEST) Supporting programme
7.30 Livestream
Nationaltheater
STAATSOPER. TV
BR-KLASSIK
 
Following performances:
Sa 30 October 2021 7.00 pm (CEST)
Tu 2 November 2021 7.00 pm (CEST)
Fr 5 November 2021 7.00 pm (CEST)

"DIE NASE" DIGITAL

In addition to the media package available to the press, the Bayerische Staatsoper now also provides a public digital offering.
Under the so-called Nasen Files, new impressions of the production have been documented daily since the beginning of rehearsals for the first premiere of the 2021-22 season. The offer features various formats such as articles, image galleries, the podcasts, for instance HOW TO OPER - the podcast for newcomers and the curious, and various videos. This further allows the audience to take a look behind the scenes of this and coming productions. Currently you can grasp, for example, the process of noses being crafted in the studios of the Bayerische Staatsoper or ensemble member Mirjam Mesak during her first make-up rehearsal can be marveled at.
The Nose Files will be continuously expanded until the premiere on 24 October 2021.