The Nose

What was farce, what prophecy and what reality?

The Nose is the first opera by Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975) if one ignores an attempt at opera from his student’s days, which was destroyed.

It was written in 1927/28 and was premiered successfully in the Maly Theatre in Leningrad in 1930. By 1936, however, it had fallen foul of the verdict on formalism and was practically banned in the Soviet Union. It did not appear on a Russian stage for another fourty-four years.

From the Synopsis:

The action takes place in Saint Petersburg.


ACT I
Introduction, drum roll, a juggling act between horn, trumpet and trombone: Life is a game, a tight- rope act. College assessor Kovalyov receiving his daily shave, looking forward to an amorous adventure, complaining about the barber’s smelly hands (brief spoken dialogue towards the end of instrumental introduction).

Scene 1. Ivan Yakovlevich's barber shop. The barber awakes from wellearned sleep, cuts open a fresh roll and finds a nose in it. His wife accuses him of having cut it off a customer when he was drunk and drives him from the house with the corpus delicti. Scene 2. On the quayside. The barber does his best to dispose of the nose, dashing along the quay, followed by cries from amazed acquaintances. He throws the nose into the Neva, but a district constable cathves him in the act and demands to know what he has done. Scene 3. Kovalyov's bedroom. The college assessor awakens from a pleasant, erotic dream and finds his nose missing. He races off to look for his nose. Scene 4. Kazan Cathedral. This is where high society of Saint Petersburg meets "worship". Kovalyov does indeed encounter his nose in the uniform of the State Councilor, he begs it to return to his face, but it refuses and disappears. MORE...