Premiere of Shostakovich’s “The Nose” in the Semperoper: An olfactory organ as superior

Losing your nose – without pain and blood – means losing your identity. Correspondingly desperate, the average Petersburg official Kovalev runs after his nose, which in the meantime has become self-employed as a state councillor. In his despair about being excluded from society through no fault of his own, he only reaped scorn and indifference.Dmitri Shostakovich also made…