Today’s MetHD broadcast was Shostakovich’s absurdist opera The Nose based on a short story by Gogol.  It’s about a bureaucrat whose nose falls off.  The nose then gallivants around town impersonating a state councillor while the bureaucrat tries desperately to get it back.  It’s a lovely Shostakovich score but honestly the one joke wears a bit thin when played out over two hours without an interval.  Where’s a Soviet censor when one needs one?

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