About the work
„Gayaneh" is a ballet with music by the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, premiered in 1942 — in the midst of the Second World War, by the Leningrad Kirov Ballet evacuated to Perm. It became famous above all for its rousing dance music, first of all the „Sabre Dance". The plot is set in the style of socialist realism.
Plot
The ballet is set on a collective farm in Soviet Armenia. The young, hard-working cotton-picker Gayaneh is married to Giko, an idle and shady man who refuses communal labour and finally proves to be a traitor and arsonist. While Gayaneh stands loyally by her collective, Giko's treachery endangers the community. In a dramatic climax — threat, fire and the intervention of the border guards — disaster is averted. In the end, in the reconciliatory conclusion typical of the genre, Gayaneh finds a new and happy life, and the festive scenes culminate in exuberant dances of the various peoples of the Caucasus, crowned by the furious „Sabre Dance".
Cultural significance
„Gayaneh" owes its world fame above all to Khachaturian's music: the „Sabre Dance" became one of the best-known orchestral pieces of all, and the famous Adagio was used, among other places, in Stanley Kubrick's film „2001: A Space Odyssey". While the plot is regarded as a period document of socialist realism, the suite from the ballet remains to this day a fixture of the concert repertoire.