Speranza
Operas by
Dmitri Shostakovich
"Il naso" (1928)
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District (1932)
Moscow, Cheryomushki
(1958)
Katerina Ismailova (1963)
Orango (unfinished, premiered
2011)
"Il naso" is a
satirical opera composed by Dimitri Chostakovich.
The libretto by Chostakovich,
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 opera, written in 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
-- canons and quartets,
-- a device taken from Alban Berg's
Wozzeck.
According to Gerard McBurney,""Il naso" is one of 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."
In June 1929, "Il Naso" was given a CONCERT performance, against Shostakovich's own wishes.
"Il naso" 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 Musicians (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".
Ideed "Il naso" was given 16 performances with two alternating
casts over six months.
"Il naso" 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 "Il naso" in the Bolshoi Theatre in 1974, supposedly the
last copy in the Soviet Union.
Chostakovich attended the rehearsal and premiere
in 1974.
------- AMERICAN PRIMA:
"Il naso" received its east coast United States professional
premiere in July 2004, at Bard College's, SummerScape in Annandale-on-Hudson New York,
directed by Francesca Zambello and performed by the American Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Leon Botstein.
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.
This production was revived in
2013, and was beamed to cinemas around the world as part of the Metropolitan
Opera's "Live in HD" programme.
Instrumentation
flute (doubling
piccolo, alto flute), oboe (doubling cor anglais), clarinet (doubling piccolo
clarinet, A clarinet, alto clarinet), bassoon(doubling contrabassoon), horn,
trumpet(doubling cornet, trombone, triangle, tambourine, castanets, tamburo,
tom-tom, ratchet, cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, tubular
bells, Xylophone, Flexatone, small domra, alto domra, balalaika, whistle,
hammering sound, harp, piano, violin, viola, cello,
contrabass
The morning after shaving
Kovalyov, one of his regular customers, a barber finds a nose in his bread.
The barber tries to get rid of it by throwing it in the Neva River.
But the barber is caught by a
police officer.
Meanwhile Kovalyov (baritone) 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.
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 (tenor) 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, Kovalyov is unable to reattach it.
Kovalyov suspects that he has been
enchanted by a woman called Madame Podtochina, because he would not marry her
daughter.
Kovalyov writes to ask her to undo the spell, but she "misinterprets" the
letter by Kovalyov 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 re-attached.
Kovalyov is shaved by the barber and flirts as he
walks along Nevsky Prospekt.
Source: Recordings of The
Nose on operadis-opera-discography.org.uk
1975
Gennady Rozhdestvensky,
Melodiya – remastered version of a production that was overseen by the composer.
No libretto.
2009 Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky – full Russian and English
libretto.
Video[edit]
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
Rozhdestvensky.
References
Commentary notes
Jump up ^ The title
in Russian (Нос, "Nos") is the reverse of the Russian word for "dream" (Сон,
"Son").
Notes
Jump up ^ Boosey & Hawkes, Repertoire note
^ Jump up
to: a b c Wilson, p. 84
Jump up ^ Hulme, p. 44
Jump up ^ Wilson, p.
85
Jump up ^ Dmitri Schostakowitsch: Dem kühlen Morgen entgegen, 3sat, 2008.
(German)
Jump up ^
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=744
Jump up ^ Opera
Boston: link to notes and information on The Nose retrieved 14 March 2010[dead
link]
Jump up ^
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/1314
Sources
Frolova-Walker,
Marina (2005). "11. Russian opera; Two anti-operas: The Love for Three Oranges
and The Nose". In Mervyn Cooke. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century
Opera. London: Cambridge University Press. pp. 182–186. ISBN 0-521-78393-3.
Hulme, Derek C., Dimitri Shostakovich, Scarecrow Press 2002
Wilson,
Elizabeth, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. London: Faber, 2006
Further
reading
Бретаницкая, Алла Леонидовна: «Нос» Д. Д. Шостаковича. Путеводитель.
(The "Nose" by D. D. Shostakovich. A guidebook.) Москва, 1983.
«Музыка»
External links[edit]
Libretto of The Nose
Video of
Shostakovich at a rehearsal of The Nose in 1974, excerpts from a 1975
documentary by Iurii Beliankin
Dmitri
Shostakovich
OperasThe Nose
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk
District
Moscow, Cheryomushki
Katerina
Ismailova
Orango
BalletsThe Golden Age
The Bolt
The Limpid
Stream ("The Bright Stream")
SymphoniesNo. 1 in F minor
No. 2 in B
major ("To October")
No. 3 in E♭ major ("The First of May")
No. 4 in C
minor
No. 5 in D minor
No. 6 in B minor
No. 7 in C major
("Leningrad")
No. 8 in C minor
No. 9 in E♭ major
No. 10 in E
minor
No. 11 in G minor ("The Year 1905")
No. 12 in D minor ("The Year
1917")
No. 13 in B♭ minor ("Babi-Yar")
No. 14 in G minor
No. 15 in A
major
ConcertosPiano Concerto No. 1 in C minor
Piano Concerto No.
2 in F major
Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor
Violin Concerto No. 2 in C♯
minor
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E♭ major
Cello Concerto No. 2 in G
major
Orchestra worksSuite from "The Nose"
Suite from "The Golden
Age"
Suite from "The Bolt"
Suite from "The Limpid Stream"
Suite from
"Encounter at the Elbe" ("Meeting on the Elbe")
Suite from "The
Gadfly"
Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1'
Suite for Jazz Orchestra No.
2
Suite for Variety Orchestra
Tahiti Trot
"Festive Overture" in A major
for Orchestra
"Novorossiisk Chimes, the Flame of Eternal Glory" for
Orchestra
Film musicThe New Babylon
Alone
Golden
Mountains
Counterplan
The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman
Balda
The Youth of Maxim
Girl Friends
The Return of Maxim
The Vyborg
Side
Friends
The Great Citizen
Zoya
Simple People
The Young
Guard
Pirogov
Michurin
Meeting on the Elbe
The Fall of
Berlin
Belinsky
The Unforgettable Year 1919
The Gadfly
Five Days,
Five Nights
Sofiya Perovskaya
Hamlet
King Lear
Vocal
musicRayok ("Little Paradise")
Song of the Forests
Suite on Finnish
Themes
From Jewish Folk Poetry
Seven Songs on Poems by Alexander
Blok
Chamber musicString
quartetsNo. 1 in C major
No. 2 in A
major
No. 3 in F major
No. 4 in D major
No. 5 in B♭ major
No. 6 in G
major
No. 7 in F♯ minor
No. 8 in C minor
No. 9 in E♭ major
No. 10 in
A♭ major
No. 11 in F minor
No. 12 in D♭ major
No. 13 in B♭ minor
No.
14 in F♯ major
No. 15 in E♭ minor
OtherQuartet Movement in E♭
major (c. 1960s)
Violin Sonata
Cello Sonata in D minor
Piano Trio No. 1
in C minor
Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor
Piano Quintet in G
minor
Piano musicPiano Sonata No. 2 in B minor
Twenty-Four
Piano Preludes and Fugues
"Children's Notebook" (6)
Three Fantastic
Dances
Related articlesList of compositions by Dmitri
Shostakovich
Leningrad première of Shostakovich's Symphony No.
7
Shostakovich v. Twentieth
Century-Fox
Post-romanticism
Neoclassicism
Portal:Classical
music
Categories:
Operas based on works by Nikolai Gogol
Operas by Dmitri
Shostakovich
Russian-language operas
1930 operas
Operas
Humor in
classical music
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