"Nose" Shostakovich in Finland. Forbidden masterpiece of the absurd Automatic translate

HELSINKI. The Finnish National Opera hosted the premiere performances of "Nose" by Shostakovich directed by Peter Stein.

Shostakovich’s first opera, The Nose, which he wrote at the age of 22, marked the beginning of the phantasmagoric history of the productions of his works. The ballet Bolt was expelled from the repertoire of the Leningrad Opera House immediately after the premiere. The Golden Age lasted for about a year. Nose was fired after 16 performances. The innovative works of the young composer did not intersect with the tastes of the party elite and its leader. They managed to break through to the public only dozens of years later, allusions seemed too obvious, Gogol’s plot was too sharp.

The Nose was staged twice: in 1974 by Boris Pokrovsky on the stage of the Moscow Chamber, in 2004 by Alexandrov and Gergiev at the Mariinsky Theater. In western theaters, opera appeared in the early 60s after the publication of the score in the publishing house Universal Edition.

Peter Stein’s appeal to the Nose is a natural accident. Having familiarized himself with Shostakovich’s score, he was struck by the power, variety and capabilities of this music, which allows expressing much more than is laid down in the Gogol plot. When he began staging the opera in Zurich, and afterwards in Helsinki, he was hardly guided by the directorial findings of Meyerhold in The Inspector General, which once impressed the composer. Stein is a dedicated apologist for the Stanislavsky system, who believes that Meyerhold’s influence on Shostakovich is somewhat hyperbolic.

Despite the extreme complexity of many vocal parts, the artists of the Finnish opera worked on the production with rapture. In addition to 32 Finnish singers, Russian artists also participate in premiere performances: Vladimir Samsonov, Leonid Bronstein, Alexey Sulimov. It is easy for them to find a common language with conductor Michael Güttler, who has long collaborated with the Mariinsky Opera House.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru