The world of opera has its iconic settings and moods: the consumptive, romantic Paris of La Bohaeme; the sexy, dangerous Seville of Carmen; the jolly and quirky Italy of The Marriage of Figaro. But in Opera Boston's performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose, staged last Friday at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, precedent is tossed aside. Instead of a world of family, love and war, we are shown a Moscow in which the police force is too busy fondling a pretzel salesgirl to arrest the giant anthropomorphic nose strolling across the road.The plot of The Nose, drawn from the Gogol short story of the same name, goes something like this: Minor bureaucrat Kovalyov awakens one day to find his nose has vanished from his face. After discovering the nose in his morning bread, the barber Ivan Yakovlevich attempts to dispose of it by flinging it into the river, but the nose returns as a bureaucrat of a higher level than Kovalyov himself. What follows is a delightfully surreal romp through the city as Kovalyov tries to find his nose and reattach it to his face, abetted and thwarted all the way by fools of every social class.

Opera Boston's directors, designers and choreographers made certain from the first that the audience would be totally immersed in the grotesquerie that is Gogol's vision of 19th-century Moscow. The production opened with cleverly lit "rain" on a stage bare but for screen buildings and streets in various stages of gray decay, and the first movement on stage is of the Russian golden double-headed eagle flapping onstage with the giant nose held in its claws. The introductory scenes that follow-the corpulent, foul barber, the hip-thrusting succubi and the raunchy timpani and brass of Kovalyov's dreams-did not so much set the stage for the narrative as characterize it, throw us into the absurdity to come rather than allow us to dip our toes in.

Stephen Salters proved adept as the mostly noseless Kovalyov with his rich voice and properly blustering manner. While Salters could have more effectively brought out the self-importance that is so important to Kovalyov's character, his skill at navigating Shostakovich's thorny score offset any thespian weaknesses.

If there is any role whose difficulty is to be highlighted, though, it is that of the nose itself. The vocal role of the renegade schnoz requires minimal singing time, but featured in that brief period is an astounding row of 11 high Cs-the six of them sung by Tonio in Donizetti's Daughter of the Regiment are challenging enough, and achieving 11 is nothing to turn up your nose at. Torrance Blaisdell hit them perfectly and navigated his endlessly amusing and probably ungainly costume besides.

But Frank Kelley's portrayal of the Police Inspector stole the show. Kelley's inspector was bombastic, petty and ridiculous and had great vocal talent to boot. From crawling like a dog on the ground to screaming at Ivan through a megaphone, Kelley admirably conveyed the embodiment of all that is wrong with Russian society as depicted in The Nose.

Yeghishe Manucharyan also deserves a nod for his bumbling Ivan the Lackey, especially during his balalaika solos; he cooperated perfectly with the orchestra to bring one of the most musically amusing moments of the show to its height.

By far the best moments of the show, in fact, were when vocalists and orchestra shone together to showcase Shostakovich's brilliant writing. Musical parodies of bodily functions, wet dreams and nattering townspeople came to life under the baton of Gil Rose and thanks to the skilled musicians and chorus. Particularly impressive was the musical and choreographic coordination of the newspaper clerks and their high-minded editor.

Occasionally, The Nose slipped into oppressive buffoonery; occasionally, the combination of score and scene and slapstick could be overwhelming. But all in all, Opera Boston's production of The Nose was dramatically engaging, musically honed and often laugh-out-loud hilarious. The talented artists brought to life through Shostakovich Gogol's surrealist impression of a Moscow unhinged, a wondrous, if occasionally disturbing, creation to observe.