15, (Russian: Нос, romanized: Nos) is Dmitri Shostakovich's first opera, a satirical work completed in 1928 based on Nikolai Gogol's 1836 story of the same name.

[1] The plot concerns a Saint Petersburg official whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own.

The song is Shostakovich's setting of the words of part 2, book 5, chapter 2 of Karamazov, where the lackey, Smerdiakov, sings to his neighbour Mariia Kondratevna.

According to the British composer Gerard McBurney writing for Boosey & Hawkes, "The Nose is one of the young Shostakovich’s greatest masterpieces, an electrifying tour de force of vocal acrobatics, wild instrumental colours and theatrical absurdity, all shot through with a blistering mixture of laughter and rage...

The result, in Shostakovich's ruthlessly irreverent hands, is like an operatic version of Charlie Chaplin or Monty Python... despite its magnificently absurd subject and virtuosic music, The Nose is a perfectly practical work and provides a hugely entertaining evening in the theatre.

"[3] Indeed, the concert performance caused bewilderment, and was ferociously attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM).

The stage premiere, conducted by Samuil Samosud, took place at the Maly Operny Theatre in Leningrad on 18 January 1930.

[5] Even so, the conductor Nikolai Malko, who had taught Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory and conducted the premiere of his pupil's First Symphony, reckoned the opera a "tremendous success"; indeed it was given 16 performances with two alternating casts over six months.

[6] The Nose was given its Italian premiere on 23 May 1964 by the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.

This production was revived in 2013, and was beamed to cinemas around the world as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD programme on 26 October.

He tries to dispose of it in the street, but is foiled by running into people he knows, then he throws it into the Neva River, but he is seen by a police officer and taken away for questioning.

Next he visits the newspaper office to place an advertisement about the loss of his nose, where they are dealing with a missing dog.

A group of policemen are at a railway station, in order to prevent the nose from escaping, where an inspector rallies them.

In the city, crowds fuelled by rumours gather in search of the nose till the police restore order.