The Nose (opera)
Encyclopedia
The Nose is a satirical
opera
composed by Dmitri Shostakovich
. The libretto
by Shostakovich, Yevgeny Zamyatin
, Georgy Ionin, and Alexander Preis
is based on the story The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
. The plot concerns a St. Petersburg
official whose nose
leaves his face and develops a life of its own. [The title in Russian (Нос, "Nos") is the reverse of the Russian word for "dream" (Сон, "Son").]
The opera, written between 1927 and 1928, uses a montage of different styles, including folk music
, popular song and atonality
. The apparent chaos is given structure by formal musical devices such as canon
s and quartet
s, a device taken from Alban Berg
's Wozzeck
.
According to the British composer Gerard McBurney
writing for Boosey & Hawkes
"The Nose is one of the young Shostakovich’s greatest masterpieces, an electrifying tour de force of vocal acrobatics, wild instrumental colours and theatrical absurdity, all shot through with a blistering mixture of laughter and rage... The result, in Shostakovich’s ruthlessly irreverent hands, is like an operatic version of Charlie Chaplin
or Monty Python
... despite its magnificently absurd subject and virtuosic music, The Nose is a perfectly practical work and provides a hugely entertaining evening in the theatre."
(RAPM). Its stage premiere, conducted by Samuil Samosud
, took place at the Maly Operny Theatre in Leningrad
on 18 January 1930. It opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension amongst musicians. Even so, the conductor Nikolai Malko
, who had taught Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory
and conducted the premiere of his pupil's First Symphony, reckoned the opera a "tremendous success"; indeed it was given 16 performances with two alternating casts over six months.
The opera was not performed again in the Soviet Union
until 1974, when it was revived by Gennady Rozhdestvensky
and Boris Pokrovsky
. Interviewed for a 2008 documentary, Rozhdestvensky related that he had found an old copy of The Nose in the Bolshoi Theatre
in 1974, supposedly the last copy in the Soviet Union. The composer attended the rehearsal and premiere in 1974. The opera was shown at Opera Boston
in early 2009, and at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City
in March 2010. Audio recordings of Metropolitan Opera performances are usually made available over the Internet to subscribers on the Met Player.
in his bread. He tries to get rid of it by throwing it in the Neva River, but he is caught by a police officer. Meanwhile Kovalyov wakes and finds his nose missing. He later sees his nose in the Kazan Cathedral, but it has acquired a higher rank than he and refuses to return to his face.
He returns to his flat, where his servant sings a love song and Kovalyov is left in despair.
A group of policemen are at a coach station, in order to prevent the nose from escaping. The nose tries to get on the coach at the last minute: the horse is frightened and runs away, while the driver tries to shoot the nose. The nose is caught, beaten and returned to Kovalyov; however, he is unable to reattach it. He suspects that he has been enchanted by a woman called Madame Podtochina, because he would not marry her daughter. He writes to ask her to undo the spell, but she misinterprets the letter as a proposal to her daughter. She convinces him that she is innocent. In the city, crowds gather in search of the nose.
Kovalyov wakes up with his nose reattached. He is shaved by the barber and flirts as he walks along Nevsky Prospekt
.
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
composed by Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
. The libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Shostakovich, Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the CPSU following the October Revolution...
, Georgy Ionin, and Alexander Preis
Alexander Preis
Alexander Preis was a Russian writer of numerous plays and libretti, including those for Shostakovich's operas The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district....
is based on the story The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
. The plot concerns a St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
official whose nose
Human nose
The visible part of the human nose is the protruding part of the face that bears the nostrils. The shape of the nose is determined by the ethmoid bone and the nasal septum, which consists mostly of cartilage and which separates the nostrils...
leaves his face and develops a life of its own. [The title in Russian (Нос, "Nos") is the reverse of the Russian word for "dream" (Сон, "Son").]
The opera, written between 1927 and 1928, uses a montage of different styles, including folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, popular song and atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
. The apparent chaos is given structure by formal musical devices such as canon
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
s and quartet
Quartet
In music, a quartet is a method of instrumentation , used to perform a musical composition, and consisting of four parts.-Western art music:...
s, a device taken from Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
's Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
.
According to the British composer Gerard McBurney
Gerard McBurney
Gerard McBurney — British composer, arranger, broadcaster, teacher and writer.Born 20 June 1954, in Cambridge, England. He is the son of Charles McBurney, an American archaeologist, and Anne Francis Edmondstone , who was a British secretary of English, Scots, and Irish ancestry...
writing for Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....
"The Nose is one of the young Shostakovich’s greatest masterpieces, an electrifying tour de force of vocal acrobatics, wild instrumental colours and theatrical absurdity, all shot through with a blistering mixture of laughter and rage... The result, in Shostakovich’s ruthlessly irreverent hands, is like an operatic version of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
or Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
... despite its magnificently absurd subject and virtuosic music, The Nose is a perfectly practical work and provides a hugely entertaining evening in the theatre."
Performance history
In June 1929, The Nose was given a concert performance, against Shostakovich's own wishes: "The Nose loses all meaning if it is seen just as a musical composition. For the music springs only from the action...It is clear to me that a concert performance of The Nose will destroy it." Indeed, the concert performance caused bewilderment, and was ferociously attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian MusiciansRussian Association of Proletarian Musicians
The Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians or RAPM was a musicians' creative union of the early Soviet period.In 1932 it was disbanded, together with other unions, such as RAPP, by The Decree on the Reformation of Literary and Artistic Organizations on April 23, 1932....
(RAPM). Its stage premiere, conducted by Samuil Samosud
Samuil Samosud
Samuil Abramovich Samosud |Georgia]], — Moscow, 6 November 1964) was a Russian conductor. He started his musical career on the cello, before conducting in the Mariinsky Theater, Petrograd in 1917. From 1918 to 1936 he conducted at the Maly Operny, Leningrad. In 1936 he became musical...
, took place at the Maly Operny Theatre in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
on 18 January 1930. It opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension amongst musicians. Even so, the conductor Nikolai Malko
Nikolai Malko
-Biography:Malko was born in Semaky, Ukraine. His father was Ukrainian, his mother Russian. He studied philology at St Petersburg University. He published articles on music criticism in the Russian press and performed as a pianist and later a conductor. In 1906 he completed his studies in history...
, who had taught Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a music school in Saint Petersburg. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.-History:...
and conducted the premiere of his pupil's First Symphony, reckoned the opera a "tremendous success"; indeed it was given 16 performances with two alternating casts over six months.
The opera was not performed again in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
until 1974, when it was revived by Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Gennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky is a Russian conductor.-Biography:Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow. His parents were the noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya...
and Boris Pokrovsky
Boris Pokrovsky
Boris Alexandrovich Pokrovsky was the operatic stage director of the Bolshoi Theatre between 1943 and 1982...
. Interviewed for a 2008 documentary, Rozhdestvensky related that he had found an old copy of The Nose in the Bolshoi Theatre
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...
in 1974, supposedly the last copy in the Soviet Union. The composer attended the rehearsal and premiere in 1974. The opera was shown at Opera Boston
Opera Boston
Opera Boston is an opera company in Boston, Massachusetts. It specializes in innovative repertoire and rarely heard works, along with opera education and outreach programs designed to bring opera education to children, in schools and after-school programs throughout the Boston area.Its home base is...
in early 2009, and at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in March 2010. Audio recordings of Metropolitan Opera performances are usually made available over the Internet to subscribers on the Met Player.
Act 1
The morning after shaving Kovalyov, one of his regular customers, a barber finds a noseHuman nose
The visible part of the human nose is the protruding part of the face that bears the nostrils. The shape of the nose is determined by the ethmoid bone and the nasal septum, which consists mostly of cartilage and which separates the nostrils...
in his bread. He tries to get rid of it by throwing it in the Neva River, but he is caught by a police officer. Meanwhile Kovalyov wakes and finds his nose missing. He later sees his nose in the Kazan Cathedral, but it has acquired a higher rank than he and refuses to return to his face.
Act 2
Kovalyov visits the newspaper office to place an advertisement about the loss of his nose, but is refused.He returns to his flat, where his servant sings a love song and Kovalyov is left in despair.
Act 3
A group of policemen are at a coach station, in order to prevent the nose from escaping. The nose tries to get on the coach at the last minute: the horse is frightened and runs away, while the driver tries to shoot the nose. The nose is caught, beaten and returned to Kovalyov; however, he is unable to reattach it. He suspects that he has been enchanted by a woman called Madame Podtochina, because he would not marry her daughter. He writes to ask her to undo the spell, but she misinterprets the letter as a proposal to her daughter. She convinces him that she is innocent. In the city, crowds gather in search of the nose.
Epilogue
Kovalyov wakes up with his nose reattached. He is shaved by the barber and flirts as he walks along Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Avenue |Prospekt]]) is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Planned by Peter the Great as beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander...
.
Recordings
Source: Recordings of The Nose on operadis-opera-discography.org.uk- 1975 Gennady RozhdestvenskyGennady RozhdestvenskyGennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky is a Russian conductor.-Biography:Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow. His parents were the noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya...
, Melodiya - remastered version of a production that was overseen by the composer. No libretto. - 2009 Valery GergievValery GergievValery Abisalovich Gergiev is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.- Early life :Gergiev,...
, Mariinsky - full Russian and English libretto.
Video
- 1979 Eduard Akimov (Platon Kuzmich Kovalyov), Alexander Lomonosov (The Nose), Valery Belykh (Ivan Yakovlevich, a barber), Nina Sasulova (Praskovia Osipovna, the barber's wife), Boris Tarkhov (Local Policeman), Boris Druzhinin (Ivan, Kovalyov's footman), Ashot Sarkisov (Doctor). Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Moscow Chamber Opera Theatre, Gennady RozhdestvenskyGennady RozhdestvenskyGennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky is a Russian conductor.-Biography:Rozhdestvensky was born in Moscow. His parents were the noted conductor and pedagogue Nikolai Anosov and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya...
.
External links
- Video of Shostakovich at a rehearsal of The Nose in 1974, excerpts from a 1975 documentary by Iurii Beliankin