An opera in three acts based on GOGOL'S short story Words by Y. PREIS
Music by Shostakovich English translation by EDWARD DOWNES
(first performance in this country)
Major Kovalyof wakes up one morning to find his nose has gone. How he copes without it, and how the nose behaves on its own, form the basis of a hilarious satire on society in general and on bureaucracy in particular.
with IAN PARTRIDGE , DUNCAN ROBERTSON and ROBERT BOWMAN (tenors)
MICHAKL RIPPON , NEILSON TAYLOR I basses)
Narrator PETER HOWELL BBC NORTHERN SINGERS BBC NORTHERN SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA conducted by EDWARD DOWNES Repetiteurs RICHARD NUNN and ROGER VIGNOLES
Producer ERNEST WARBURTON Acts 1 and 2 8.35* The Importance of Having a Nose: VICTOR ERLICH , Ben-singer Professor of Russian literature at Yale. talks about Gogol's short story and its background.
8.55* The Nose: Act 3
'Michael Langdon and David Lennox broadcast by permission of the General Administrator. Covent Garden; Geoffrey Chard, Ann Howard , Sandra Dugdale by permission of Sadler's Wells Opera)