Gayane
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Gayane (sometimes written Gayaneh or Gayne) is a ballet in four acts with music by Aram Khachaturian. Originally composed in 1942, to a libretto by Konstantin Derzhavin and with choreography by Nina Aleksandrovna Anisimova, the score was revised in 1952, and then again in 1957 with a new plot. The design was by Natan Altman (scenery) and Tatyana Bruni (costumes).
The first production was staged by the Kirov Ballet and aired in Perm, Russia, on 9 December 1942. The principal dancers were: Natalia Dudinskaya (Gayane), Nikolai Zubkovsky (Koren), Konstantin Sergeyev (Armen), Tatanya Vecheslova (Nune) and Boris Shavrov (Giko).
Khatchaturian's original Gayane concerned the story of a young Armenian woman whose patriotic convictions came into conflict with her personal feelings when she discovered her husband betraying his country. In later years, however, the plot underwent several modifications, whose result was to emphasise romance at the expense of nationalist zeal.
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[edit] Plot Outline
The character Gayane, daughter of Avanes (the chairman of the Kolkhoz, or collective), helps to capture a stranger who has secretly penetrated the territory of the Soviet Army with the intention of discovering geological secrets. By doing this, the loving Gayane is coming to the aid of her friend, the youth Armen. Armen's rival, Giko, pays for his life for involuntarily helping the enemy. But all ends well, and the finale of the ballet is a celebration of the friendship of the peoples and nations of the Soviet Union.
It is a simple tale of a collective farm in the Soviet Union, reflecting the attitudes and sentiments of the 1940s, when the country was involved in world war. It is a tale of a spy caught, and of people who are weak and cannot at first resist his influence. But of course it is also about the final victory of the collective farmers, who overcome the troubles and triumphantly create their own collective, to live happily ever after.
[edit] Origin
The ballet was created when the company was in Perm (during the World War II evacuation), on the small stage of the Perm state theatre. But despite these limitations, the effect was profound; in effect, the message was that the company still lived on, despite the very hard times. Anisimova invited different dancers to participate in her ballet, dancers who happened to be in the city at that time: there was a sense of camaraderie and combined effort which suited the positive feeling of the ballet itself.
The composition, the music, the dancing- all together created something which, regardless of the weaknesses in the libretto, expressed the triumph of dancing and its many different possibilities.
[edit] Analysis
The ballet was a modest success when performed in front of Joseph Stalin, and has seen limited rerelease outside the USSR.
It was understood at the time that this simple libretto was really just the necessary backdrop for dancing itself, which was splendidly choreographed and staged by Anisimova (herself an outstanding character dancer, who performed in the original production). Anisimova thought in terms of character dancing, but she knew a surprising amount about classical dance.
Gayane has survived for many years, and excerpts from it have been performed by numerous companies and schools, who borrow especially from the second act, in which a wedding takes place. Anisimova created wonderful duets and variations for Gayane and her lover, Kasakov. It was very unusual choreography for its time, in that it combined classical dance with folk dance, particularly in the stylized use of arms and hands, reflecting the Armenian folklore and culture that form the background of the ballet.
The diversity of such collective farms provided the backdrop for a strong ethnic flavor to each part of the music (with some tunes favoring the slower string quartet arrangements, while others taking on the lively folk instruments of the gypsies of Eastern Europe), and of a compelling tale of love between classes.
For concert performance, the composer later arranged three suites from music drawn from the ballet score. The Sabre Dance, a movement in the final act of the ballet, is perhaps the most famous piece.
The premiere cast included Natalia Dudinskaya and Konstantin Sergeyev, the leading figures at the time in Leningrad ballet. Nina Anisimova, naturally, did not forget herself, and she danced the part of an Armenian girl in the ballet who appears on the stage as an image and symbol of Socialist labour. She works hard; she knows how to produce the most from the fields; but she also knows how to enjoy life, spending her free time in dancing and in laughter.
The suite of dances in the second act reflects the different nationalities in the Soviet Union, because at that time Armenia was already a mixed population. For this Anisimova created the famous Sabre Dance, which, performed separately as an extract, was to become a showpiece for companies in many countries.
The style of movement in the dance is unusual, and quite unexpected, even for character dance- unusual bends of the body, inventive positions of the arms which do not come from the classical vocabulary, the overall structure of the body which is not balletic- but most of all, in keeping with the music of Khachaturian, everything is very temperamental, which suited the character of Anisimova herself.
In later years, when critics came to analyze Gayane more closely, they came to see that in strict terms, it does not stand as a completely successful whole because of its very naive libretto, and because of what might be called its over-sociological emphasis. But all the same, choreographers, critics, and historians persuaded the Kirov Theatre to take on the excerpts from the ballet and show them to the public, and they proved very successful.
The variation of Gayane, the variation of Giko, the bad boy of the ballet, or the character dances of the people, for example, were all very effectively done and were subsequently shown often as concert numbers. After its Perm premiere, the ballet was restaged twice for the Kirov by Anisimova, with the 1952 version, after her revisions and additions, standing as the definitve version.
In the end, Anisimova did a very important thing on the stage of the Kirov- she proved that character dancing was still alive, and that it should be included in the world of classical ballet. Gayane's use of dance did not really follow in the Petipa tradition, as for example in Swan Lake, where the audience is treated to national dance in separate divertissements, or "dances of le salon", as Petipa called it: here, by contrast, the force of character dance is felt throughout the ballet; it is a natural part of the people and of their history. Over the years, the ballet helped other choreographers to understand that it is very importnat for choreographic art, at least in Russia, to combine different parts of character dancing with the classical and mime tradition.
Gayane established itself as a sound example of the way that excellent character dance and ballet can be combined; and in such, its value to Soviet choreography of the 20th century is undoubtedly quite significant.
[edit] Trivia
Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey featured some of the less up-tempo parts of the Gayane music ("Gayane's Adagio"), as did the films Clear and Present Danger and Aliens. Gayane's Adagio is also used in "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown"
[edit] Sources
Bremster, M. (ed.) 1993. "International DIctionary of Ballet" Detroit: St James Press
