The Nose (opera) - Performance History

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 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"; 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.