William Kentridge's The Nose

I’m curious about William Kentridge’s The Nose, his latest foray into opera that opens at the Met on March 5. An adaptation of an adaptation, Kentridge’s The Nose is based on Dimitri Shostakovich’s (Russian composer 1906-1975) opera from 1930, which was based on Nikolai Gogol’s (Russian novelist 1809-1852) short story published in 1836. The story focuses on a Russian civil servant who wakes up one morning to find his nose missing from his face. When he finds the rogue nose, it refuses to return to his face. I’m not sure if this is just a silly story or if the nose is a metaphor for something else. Either way, the trailer looks really cool with its shadow puppetry and Russian constructivist aesthetic.