The giant tap dancing noses scene from Shostakovichs The Nose ( The Royal Opera)

Shostakovichs surreal and brilliant first opera tells the story of a man who wakes one morning to find that his nose has gone missing Find out more at Shostakovich was only 20 when he began writing The Nose, his operatic debut. He turned to a tiny short story by Gogol: an absurdist satire, where a civil servants errant nose launches its owner on a ludicrous battle against both nose and the authorities, as bureaucratic processes break down in the face of so unusual a problem.