“Setting to the creation of my first ballet score I knew quite nothing about the specific character of the ballet as a musical genre. While working, I managed to seize and realize its characteristic peculiarities rather quickly. The circumstance that ‘the element of dance lives in Khachaturian’s music’ (Myaskovsky), must have helped me to a certain extent…” This is the author’s own confession.
In a friendly talk with the composer, Anastas Mikoyan, a prominent political figure of that time, asked him to create a ballet by the upcoming “10 Days of Armenian Art” (it became one of the first in the Armenian musical theatre and the first of the national ballets performed at the prewar “Days of Art”). This idea completely corresponded to the composer’s own creative aspirations. The theme of the ballet was born in the same time, during the talk with Mikoyan . He advised Khachaturian to meet the well-known Armenian producer Gevorg Hovhanesyan who had recently written a ballet libretto “Happiness” about the life and labor of Soviet frontier-guards and collective farmers.
http://mkhitaryanpr.weebly.com/gayane-ballet.html
