On The Nose: A Preview of the Met's Exciting New Opera, Starring Paulo Szot

He’s got a Tony Award (for playing dreamy Emile de Becque in South Pacific ), and now Paulo Szot is making his Metropolitan Opera debut in artist/director William Kentridge’s visually arresting new production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1930 work The Nose . Singing in Russian, the Brazilian baritone plays Kovalyov, an official who wakes up one morning to discover that his nose has disappeared—and taken on a higher bureaucratic rank. (Paulo's missing nose is played by another singer, Gordon Gietz, and also scurries around in Kentridge’s collage-style sets.) Broadway.com got the treat of watching a rehearsal of the opera, which debuts March 5, then chatting with Szot and Kentridge backstage at the Met.