On Pointe with Khachaturian's Gayane
The Plot Summary
Gayane, ballet in four acts (1942)
I'm Aram Khachaturian, and I'm happy to share the plot summary of my ballet Gayane with you. In the original libretto you follow Gayane, who learns on a collective farm that her husband Giko is plotting against it, and that is why the weddings at the end feel earned. Once you've read it, open the Trainer on this site, where my fellow composers and I teach you to recognize our pieces when you hear them.
---
Gayane Decoded: Cotton, Smugglers and a Very Big Wedding
Gayane is a ballet in four acts, and its story has all the twists of a good evening series. I reworked it from my earlier ballet Happiness, and the story takes place on a collective farm, a kolkhoz, where a cotton harvest runs straight into a conspiracy. There is an unhappy marriage, a plot against the farm's warehouse, a showdown in the mountains and three weddings at the end. Stay with me, because the most famous dance of the whole score is waiting in the final act.Folk Tunes, Notebooks and Two Clever Collaborators
I spent much of 1939 in Armenia, researching the folk traditions that shaped the music. The 1941-42 version has a libretto by Konstantin Derzhavin and choreography by Nina Anisimova, and I'll tell the plot the way the original libretto has it. I say that carefully, because the characters and events changed when the ballet was revised in 1952 and again in 1957. So think of what follows as the first telling, the one that reached the stage in wartime.Meet the Cast: The Wife Who Notices Everything
Gayane is the heart of the whole story. She is unhappily married to Giko, and she has firm patriotic convictions. When she discovers her husband's treason, those convictions collide with her feelings. Everything that follows grows out of that painful discovery, and she ends the ballet by marrying Kazakov.Meet the Cast: The Husband Who Brings the Storm Clouds
Giko is Gayane's husband, and he is the villain of the piece. In the original libretto he is a drunk, an arsonist and a smuggler of public money. He is lazy and always up to something, which is exactly what makes the farm uneasy. Every bit of trouble in the ballet traces back to him.Meet the Cast: The Brother Who Shows Up
Armen is Gayane's brother, and he is the dependable one of the family. He gets swept into the mountain adventure of the third act. Konstantin Sergeyev danced him in the first production, and he has a variation of his own in the concert suites. By the end of the ballet he marries Aishe.Meet the Cast: The Girl From the Mountains
Aishe is a Kurdish girl who lives near the mountain settlement of the third act. She has an admirer named Izmail, so she is never short of attention. Her name sounds much like the title Ayesha's Dance in the concert suites, though the spelling differs. In the end she is the one who marries Armen.Meet the Cast: The Hopeful Admirer
Izmail is Aishe's admirer, the romantic hopeful of the mountain act. Since Aishe ends the ballet marrying Armen, his hopes are not rewarded. Every good story needs someone who hopes with all his heart, and he does exactly that. He gives the mountain scenes a little extra longing.Meet the Cast: The Man Who Sets Things Right
Kazakov is the one who puts the farm back in order. In the original libretto he arrives in the mountains and arrests the smugglers. He is trustworthy where Giko is not, and the two men could hardly be more different. In the last act he is one of the grooms, and his bride is Gayane.Meet the Cast: The Couple Without Drama
Karen and Nune are the third couple of the ballet. They are not a rival pair or a love triangle, just a happy couple on the farm. Karen marries Nune in the final act, and nothing dramatic stands in their way. I like having them there, because a wedding finale needs more than one happy pair.Act 1: A Harvest With a Splinter in It
The cotton harvest begins. The kolkhoz is full of workers, and the music bustles with the energy of people who have a lot to do. I wanted the opening to feel like a whole community in motion, with Gayane at its center. Everyone seems to pull in the same direction, which makes the one exception stand out.Act 1: The Husband Who Won't Pull His Weight
Giko stirs up trouble. Gayane's lazy husband does not share in the common effort, and his behavior causes problems in the middle of the harvest. Here we see the unhappy marriage in action, and the mood shifts from cheerful to uneasy. It plants a question that the rest of the ballet answers: how far will he go?Act 2: A Secret Too Big to Keep
Gayane makes a discovery. She learns that her husband is plotting with smugglers. They intend to embezzle money and then burn the warehouse, and the music turns tense and sly. Notice how quickly a cheerful farm story becomes a thriller.Act 2: Heart Versus Conviction
Duty meets feeling. Gayane is patriotic to the bone, yet the man plotting against her farm is her own husband. That clash between conviction and feeling is the emotional engine of the ballet. I wrote music that lets both sides be heard, because nobody in this scene has an easy choice.Act 3: Fresh Air and Fresh Faces
The story climbs into the mountains. The scene moves near a Kurdish settlement, where Gayane is joined by her brother Armen. We also meet the Kurdish girl Aishe and her admirer Izmail, and the Dance of the Young Kurds belongs to this world of color and movement. The change of scenery gives the music room for new sounds, and I leaned into it happily.Act 3: The Peace Gets Interrupted
Giko attacks. Giko and his gang burst in, and the peaceful mountain mood breaks apart. Accounts differ on his target, since one source says he tries to kill Armen and another says he stabs Gayane. Whichever it is, the danger is real, and the orchestra makes sure you feel it.Act 3: Right on Cue
Kazakov saves the day. He arrives and arrests the smugglers. Justice shows up just in time, the way it does in the best series finales. Giko's schemes end here, which clears the way for a much happier last act.Act 4: One Year Later, One Sturdy Warehouse
The kolkhoz celebrates. The story returns to the farm a year later, and the rebuilt warehouse is dedicated. It is a quiet triumph after everything that went wrong, and the whole community turns out. The mood is one of renewal, and the music finally relaxes into pure celebration.Act 4: Three Weddings and No Funerals
Three couples marry. Gayane marries Kazakov, Armen marries Aishe, and Karen marries Nune. Folk dances from several peoples fill the celebration, like guests who each brought a dish to the table. After so much tension, the happy ending feels fully earned.Act 4: The Dance That Stole the Show
The Sabre Dance arrives. It sweeps up the wedding crowd and then, as it turned out, the whole world. The story goes that I wrote it in eleven hours, after the Kirov director asked for one more dance. In 1963 I called it an unruly, rowdy child in my musical family.After the Curtain: From Wartime Perm to Everywhere
The Kirov Ballet gave the first performance in Perm in December 1942, while the company was evacuated during the Second World War. Natalia Dudinskaya danced Gayane, and the following year the work earned me a first-class Stalin Prize. In 1943 I also put together three orchestral suites from the ballet. The complete ballet had only moderate success, but those suites carried Gayane around the world.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about the plot summary of Gayane as much as I enjoyed telling it. Looking back, it's a story of a cotton harvest, a plot that goes wrong, and a wedding where everyone finally gets to celebrate. I like to think the music carries that same warmth, with the wedding dances bringing the whole evening to a lively close. There is still a lot more of Gayane to explore. The ballet holds many other dances, and each one has its own character and its own small story behind it. If you'd like to keep going, please click on the links below and see where they take you. I'd be glad to have you along for the next part of the journey.