Opera: 'The Nose' is nothing to sniff at

The Nose was created by a team made in an absurdist heaven - Nicolai Gogol, Dmitri Shostakovich and William Kentridge.

Kentridge's production of Shostakovich's opera, based on the Gogol short story, debuted at the Metropolitan Opera two years ago to popular and critical acclaim, and with good reason.

Shostakovich's wild dissonance perfectly fits Gogol's satire of petty bureaucrats in mid-19th-century Russia.

And Kentridge's multiple versions of the nose - a stick figure in jerky, stop-action animation, running away from its self-important owner, or a human-sized lump wrapped in Russian newsprint, or a dashing young man dressed as a high-level state councillor - take the opera to the level of the truly fantastic.

The Nose is a short, sharp and very funny opera. A drunken barber has shaved off the nose of a low-level bureaucrat, who is frantic at the effect this will have on his social life. When he eventually finds the nose, it' s having too good a time to rejoin his face. We see the nose diving into a pool, riding a skeletal horse, rocking in a bentwood chair, dancing a jig and even painting a portrait of Stalin .

The revival of The Nose is the latest in this year's season of the Met's Live in HD series.

• 'The Nose' plays intermittently at Cinema Nouveau theatres until December 12. Check www.ster-kinekor.co.za for dates and times