Although the opera shares the basic characters and outline of the play, it has a number of differences from the original story in terms of plot and emphasis. One example is in the convoy after Katerina gives Sergei her stockings: in the opera, all the women mock Katerina, whereas in the story, Sergei and Sonya mock her while Fiona and Gordyushka shame them in response to their cruelty toward her.
Act 1
Scene 1: Katerina's room
Katerina is unhappily married to Zinovy, a provincial flour-merchant. She complains to herself of her loneliness. Her father-in-law Boris, angered at her attitude in response to his saying that mushrooms are his favourite dish, says it is her fault for not producing an heir. She replies that Zinovy cannot give her a child – which Boris disdains; he then threatens her if she decides to seduce some youthful lover. Zinovy is called away on business, and Boris – against his son's inclinations – makes Katerina swear before an icon to be faithful. A servant, Aksinya, tells Katerina about the womanising new clerk, Sergei.
Scene 2: The Izmailovs' yard
Sergei and his comrades are sexually harassing Aksinya. Katerina intervenes. She berates him for his machismo and asserts that women are as brave and capable as men. Sergei is willing to prove her wrong and they wrestle; she is thrown down and Sergei falls on top of her. Boris appears. She says that she tripped and Sergei in trying to help her, fell down also. The other peasants back her up. Boris however is suspicious and roars at the peasants, telling them to get back to work before ordering Katerina to fry some mushrooms for him and threatening to tell Zinovy all about her behaviour.
Scene 3: Katerina's room
Katerina prepares to go to bed. Sergei knocks on her door with the excuse that he wants to borrow a book because he cannot sleep, but Katerina has none; she cannot read. As she is about to close the door he continues attempting to seduce her by remembering their wrestling match earlier that day. He gets into the room and forces himself on her. After this is done, she tells him to leave, but he refuses and she agrees to embark on an affair with him. Boris knocks on the door and confirms that Katerina is in bed and locks her in. Sergei is trapped in the room, and the two make love.
Act 2
Scene 4: The yard
One night a week later. Boris, unable to sleep due to unease about thieves being on the prowl, is walking in the courtyard in the pre-dawn darkness. He, remembering his own youthful days as a rake and knowing Zinovy's low libido, is considering seducing Katerina himself to fulfill his son's marital duties. He spots Sergei climbing out of Katerina's window. He catches him and publicly whips him as a burglar, then has him locked up. Katerina witnesses this but cannot stop him because she remains locked in her room. When finally she manages to climb down the eavestrough-drainpipe the other servants restrain her on Boris' order. After being exhausted by beating Sergei, Boris demands some dinner, saying that he will whip Sergei again the next day and dispatches a servant to call Zinovy back, saying that Zinovy is to be told that there's trouble at home. Katerina adds rat-poison to some mushrooms and gives them to him. As he is dying, calling for a priest, she retrieves the keys to free Sergei. The priest, called by the arriving morning shift of workers who find Boris in agony, arrives: Boris vainly tries to tell him that he was poisoned and falls back dead pointing at Katerina. Katerina, weeping crocodile tears, convinces him that Boris has accidentally eaten poisonous mushrooms and he says a prayer over Boris' body.
Scene 5: Katerina's room
Katerina and Sergei are together. Sergei querulously says that their affair will have to end due to Zinovy's impending return and wishes he and Katerina could marry – Katerina assures him that they'll marry but refuses to tell him how she'll arrange it. Sergei then falls asleep; Katerina is then tormented by Boris' ghost and cannot sleep. Later she hears Zinovy returning. He has been called back by one of the servants with the news of his father's death. Although Sergei hides, Zinovy sees Sergei's trousers and belt and guesses the truth. As he and Katerina quarrel, he whips her with the belt. Hearing Katerina's cries, Sergei emerges and confronts Zinovy, who then tries to escape and call the servants. Katerina stops Zinovy: she and Sergei then proceed to strangle Zinovy, who's finally finished off by Sergei with a blow on the head with a heavy candlestick. The lovers hide the corpse in the wine-cellar.
Act 3
Scene 6: Near the cellar
Following Zinovy's disappearance he has been presumed dead. Katerina and Sergei prepare to get married, but she is tormented by the fact that Zinovy's corpse is hidden in the wine cellar. Sergei reassures her and they leave for the wedding ceremony. A drunken peasant breaks into the cellar, finds Zinovy's body and goes to fetch the police.
Scene 7: The police station
The police are complaining about not being invited to the wedding and vainly try to distract themselves by tormenting a "nihilist" schoolteacher because of atheism when the peasant arrives and gives them the opportunity for revenge.
Scene 8: The Izmailov garden
Everyone is drunk at the wedding. Katerina sees that the cellar door is open, but the police arrive as she and Sergei are trying to escape.
Act 4
Scene 9: A temporary convict camp near a bridge
On the way to penal labour to Siberia, Katerina bribes a guard to allow her to meet Sergei. He blames her for everything. After she leaves, Sergei tries to seduce another convict, Sonyetka. She demands a pair of stockings as her price. Sergei tricks Katerina into giving him hers, whereupon he gives them to Sonyetka. Sonyetka and the other convicts taunt Katerina, who pushes Sonyetka into an icy river – also, herself, falling in. They are swept away and the convict train moves on.

该舞剧由肖斯塔科维奇作曲，全剧共二幕，舞剧编导是格里戈洛维奇。
这部3幕6场芭蕾，创作于1920-1930年，作曲家为这部作品写下了37段音乐，这是肖斯塔科维奇所创作的三部芭蕾舞中的第一部也是最好的一部，它构思于20世纪20年代列宁格勒时文化艺术骚动变迁时期，前卫的无产阶级团结起来反对法西斯主义和资产阶级，并对欧洲的政治进行了尖锐的讽刺。当时作曲家无比兴奋地首次到德国魏玛访问，他的双眼闪烁着激动的光芒，接触了爵士乐，卡巴莱酒馆的歌舞表演，当代年轻的人所喜爱的库尔特·魏尔（Kurt Weill）的音乐，同样向往卓别林（Chaplin）或巴斯特·基顿（Buster Keaton）的喜剧惊悚片中另人兴奋的音乐，肖斯塔科维奇的目标是用音乐来成功地表明更加鲜明两种文化的特征的不调和性。然而，肖斯塔科维当时为了更加吸引观众的关注，有着拙劣地模仿西方形式主义的可能性，如足球队的健美操，作品中加入了许多的爵士音乐元素， 1928年，他与指挥尼古拉·马尔科（Malko）打赌，他精心为文森特·尤曼斯（Vincent Youmans）重新配器的《鸳鸯茶座》（Tea for Two），成为非常流行欢快的小品，并把它用在第3幕幕间曲中。
芭蕾舞剧讲述了一支充满活力、健康的共产主义苏联国家足球队，他们应邀参加在某腐朽的西方资本主义国家的城市（大概是柏林）举办的题为“黄金时代”的工业博览会，与一支体弱多病的纳粹德国足球队进行对抗赛的冒险经历。崇高的苏联运动员成为不幸的受害者，他们受到每一种邪恶的诱惑，接触到许多在政治上不正确并有特征的人物（歌剧中的主角，法西斯，密探，黑人和其他人）。足球队在参加比赛时，遭到警察的骚扰和邪恶的资产阶级（叼着雪茄大腹便便的银行家）和其他或流氓势力的关押。当球队从监狱中被释放出来时，随当地的工人阶级一起参加了推翻资本家并与工人们和足球队建立了团结友谊，一起表演了最好的芭蕾与舞蹈。
这部作品一经上演，受到观众的热烈欢迎，在二年的时间内，一共演出了18场，可是好景不长，由于文人之间相轻，两派之间争斗，最终斯大林钦定，他的作品遭受了批评（包括这部芭蕾舞作品），差点被打入冷宫。

The Bolshoi is “at the top of its game” (Telegraph, U.K.) in acclaimed choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot’s effervescent production of The Taming of the Shrew. Set to a tapestry of Shostakovich’s most colorful music, Shakespeare’s famously chauvinistic comedy is transformed into a battle of wits between two equally feisty individuals: stormy individualist Katharina and smug bad boy Petruchio. With their signature bravura, the Bolshoi’s incomparable dancers bring to hilarious life all of the fawning, preening, and hypocrisy that well-born Kate finds so tiresome—and that ultimately makes the rough-edged outsider Petruchio seem so appealing to her.

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his satirical opera The Nose, based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, between 1927 and 1928.
Opera in 3 acts and 10 scenes, without intermission
Act 1
Prologue
St Petersburg. Kovalyov, a Collegiate Assessor is being shaved by Ivan Yakovlevich (a barber). He is one of Yakovlevich's regular customers.
The next morning, Yakovlevich finds a nose in his bread. His wife, believing he has cut off one of his customers' noses, requests him to dispose of it. 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. Meanwhile, Kovalyov wakes and finds his nose missing. His first reaction is disbelief, then shock, and he sets out to find it. He later sees his nose praying in the Kazan Cathedral, now the size of a human being. Since the nose has acquired a higher rank (State Councillor) than he, it refuses to have any dealings with him, and leaves.
Act 2
In his search, Kovalyov finds himself at the Chief of Police's apartment, but he is not at home. Next he visits the newspaper office to place an advertisement about the loss of his nose, where they are dealing with a missing dog. After explaining his loss, his request is refused on the grounds of the newspaper's reputation. Upon demonstrating his loss, the clerk suggests he tell his story. Kovalyov feels insulted and leaves.
He returns to his apartment, where his servant is playing the balalaika, he dismisses him and wallows in self-pity.
Act 3
The police take up the search. A group of policemen are at a railway station, in order to prevent the nose from escaping, where an inspector rallies them. The nose runs in and tries to stop the train, and a general pursuit ensues, resulting in its capture. The nose is then beaten into its normal size, wrapped and returned to Kovalyov by the inspector, but Kovalyov is unable to reattach it. Nor can a doctor. He then suspects that he has been placed under a spell by a woman called Madame Podtochina, because he would not marry her daughter. He writes to ask her to undo the spell, but she misinterprets the letter as a proposal to her daughter. She convinces him that she is innocent. In the city, crowds fuelled by rumours gather in search of the nose till the police restore order.
Epilogue
Kovalyov wakes up with his nose reattached, and dances a polka in joy. Yakovlevich has been released from prison and arrives to shave him. Afterwards Kovalyov wanders along Nevsky Prospekt greeting acquaintances, while people discuss the story.

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his satirical opera The Nose, based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, between 1927 and 1928.
Opera in 3 acts and 10 scenes, without intermission
Act 1
Prologue
St Petersburg. Kovalyov, a Collegiate Assessor is being shaved by Ivan Yakovlevich (a barber). He is one of Yakovlevich's regular customers.
The next morning, Yakovlevich finds a nose in his bread. His wife, believing he has cut off one of his customers' noses, requests him to dispose of it. 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. Meanwhile, Kovalyov wakes and finds his nose missing. His first reaction is disbelief, then shock, and he sets out to find it. He later sees his nose praying in the Kazan Cathedral, now the size of a human being. Since the nose has acquired a higher rank (State Councillor) than he, it refuses to have any dealings with him, and leaves.
Act 2
In his search, Kovalyov finds himself at the Chief of Police's apartment, but he is not at home. Next he visits the newspaper office to place an advertisement about the loss of his nose, where they are dealing with a missing dog. After explaining his loss, his request is refused on the grounds of the newspaper's reputation. Upon demonstrating his loss, the clerk suggests he tell his story. Kovalyov feels insulted and leaves.
He returns to his apartment, where his servant is playing the balalaika, he dismisses him and wallows in self-pity.
Act 3
The police take up the search. A group of policemen are at a railway station, in order to prevent the nose from escaping, where an inspector rallies them. The nose runs in and tries to stop the train, and a general pursuit ensues, resulting in its capture. The nose is then beaten into its normal size, wrapped and returned to Kovalyov by the inspector, but Kovalyov is unable to reattach it. Nor can a doctor. He then suspects that he has been placed under a spell by a woman called Madame Podtochina, because he would not marry her daughter. He writes to ask her to undo the spell, but she misinterprets the letter as a proposal to her daughter. She convinces him that she is innocent. In the city, crowds fuelled by rumours gather in search of the nose till the police restore order.
Epilogue
Kovalyov wakes up with his nose reattached, and dances a polka in joy. Yakovlevich has been released from prison and arrives to shave him. Afterwards Kovalyov wanders along Nevsky Prospekt greeting acquaintances, while people discuss the story.