Aram Khachaturyan - Gayane - 05 Prologue ’Friendship’ - Storm

Gayane is a four-act ballet with music by Aram Khachaturian. Originally composed in 1942, to a libretto by Konstantin Derzhavin and choreographed by his wife Nina Aleksandrovna Anisimova, the score was revised in 1952, and in 1957, with a new plot. The stage design was by Natan Altman (scenery) and Tatyana Bruni (costumes). The first production was on 3 December 1942, staged by the Kirov Ballet while in Perm (Russia) for the duration of the Second World War and was broadcast on the radio. Khachaturian’s original Gayane was the story of a young Armenian woman whose patriotic convictions conflict with her personal feelings on discovering her husband’s treason. In later years, the plot was modified several times, the resultant story emphasising romance at the expense of nationalist zeal. Many elements of interethnic love, betrayal and friendship interact in an Armenian setting. The central character is a young woman named Gayane, who works in a kolkhoz in a mountainous district near the national border.