IL NASO (stage premiere, January 1930, Maly Operny Theatre, Leningrad) -- Metropolitan Opera

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


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Categories:
Operas based on works by Nikolai Gogol
Operas by Dmitri Shostakovich
Russian-language operas
1930 operas
Operas
Humor in classical music