Crystal vaginas, giant noses and ‘vaudeville on acid’: Barrie Kosky on his most outrageous shows

Barrie Kosky’s the Nose by Shostakovich, performed at the Royal Opera House in 2016. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Barrie Kosky has been repulsing, entertaining and thrilling audiences since he first appeared on the Australian live theatre scene with his distinctly European-infused Gilgul Theatre in the early 1990s.

Characterised early on as the cliched enfant terrible, the Melbourne director’s work has matured over the years, but has never shied from pushing artistic boundaries and breaking rigid operatic rules. In doing so, Kosky has established a formidable reputation in Europe as the guy you get in to resurrect the stale corpses of the opera repertoire.