Shostakovich's THE NOSE Set for PBS' GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET, 2/23

William Kentridge's dazzlingly innovative production of Shostakovich's shocking, unconventional opera about a beleaguered Russian official and his runaway nose airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, February 23 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program at 12:30 p.m.)

The Nose stars Tony Award winner (South Pacific) Paulo Szot as Kovalyov, a hapless bureaucrat who awakes one morning to discover that his nose has run away. Andrey Popov is the menacing Police Inspector and Alexander Lewis makes his company role debut as Kovalyov's peripatetic nose. Pavel Smelkov conducts.

Szot starred as Kovalyov in the 2010 Met premiere of Shostakovich's The Nose. He won a 2008 Tony Award for his portrayal of Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific.

Kentridge is one of the world's preeminent visual artists. His work has been the subject of major gallery shows and museum retrospectives around the world. As a stage director, he has created acclaimed multimedia productions of Büchner's Woyzeck, Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He made his Met debut with this production of The Nose in 2010 and will create a new production of Berg's Lulu in a future Met season.

Of this production, The Wall Street Journal enthused, "A wildly colorful and imaginative staging, a non-stop hour-and-a-half of ingenious, delirious mayhem." And The New York Times raved, "With unflagging energy and unfettered imagination, it powerfully seconds both the irreverent zaniness of the Gogol story on which the opera is based and the teeming exuberance of Shostakovich's music."

Soprano Patricia Racette hosts the broadcast.

The Nose was originally seen live in movie theaters on October 26 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Metis a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET Productions LLC, one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America's most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming. Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Metis provided by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home builder. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, The Agnes Varis Trust, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Gary Halvorson directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O'Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

Visit Great Performances online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information on this and other Great Performances programs.

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