The Golden Age. Op. 22. Ballet. Score. (In two volumes.)

Form:

Ballet in three acts and six scenes. Original working title "Fashlandiya" and later, "Dinamiada".
While preparing for the performance, Alexander Ivanovsky’s script was subjected to significant revision. In particular, the place where the events took place was changed; the transparently allegorical country “Fashland” was changed to a “large capitalist city in the West”; and the name Dinamiada was ultimately replaced with The Golden Age.

Orchestra:

Piccolo, Flauto (= Piccolo II), Oboe, Corno inglese, Clarinetto piccolo (Es), Clarinetto (B), Clarinetto basso (B), 2 Sassofoni soprani (B), Fagotto, Contrafagotto
3 Trombe (B), 4 Corni (F), 3 Tromboni, Tuba
Timpani, Triangolo, Fischietto, Legno, Castagnetti, Raganella, Tamburino, Tamburo, Piatti, Cassa, Tam-tam
Flessatono, Campanelli, Silofono
Celesta, Apra
Banjo, Bajan
BANDA: 2 Cornetti (B), 3 Trombe (B), 2 Alti (Es), 2 Baritoni (B), 2 Bassi
Violini I, Violini II, Viole, Violoncelli, Contrabassi

Composed:

Autumn 1929 to spring 1930, at Leningrad.

Duration:

Complete 1930 score: 2 hrs 13 mins.

The published score of the ballet The Golden Age is the final author’s version of the work that corresponds to the staging by the Leningrad State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (GATOB) in 1930.

During preparation of the publication, all the available author’s manuscripts and the hand-written score for hire at DSCH Publishers were used. The hand-written score was based on the score kept in the theatre’s library. Conductor Mikhail Yurovsky and music expert Sergey Sapozhnikov looked for the music notations (score and piano score) at the library. It transpired that the ballet score has not survived in full. Several of the items missing in the score were restored with the help of Director of the Leningrad Branch of the USSR Music Fund P. Radchik based on the orchestral parts that have survived. N. Kruglyakov introduced the parts into the score. Composer Veniamin Basner did the final editing of the score.

When work on restoring the score was finished, the author’s manuscript of the score of The Golden Age submitted by Shostakovich to GATOB on 1 November 1929 was found at Universal Edition Publishers in Vienna. Comparison of the two scores showed that during preparations for the performance, the composer made significant changes to the orchestration. Some of the items were also rearranged, the overall composition of the ballet was dramatically changed to rectify the disproportion in length of the second and third acts (see more on this in the article in this volume), and many changes were made to the names of the items, the texts of the stage directions, and even the names of the cast.

The most significant differences between the notation sources are given in the bar-by-bar comments compiled by Viktor Ekimovsky, the music editor of this volume.

At the beginning of the 1980s, The Golden Age returned to the stage in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow with the brilliant choreography of Yuri Grigorovich and was acclaimed for performances given when the Theatre took it on tour through many countries around the world. The rehabilitation of this forgotten and reviled work was spectacular. However, its renaissance took place in a musical version which diverged fundamentally from the original and with a completely new narrative. DSCH’s project to publish The Golden Age, and following that Shostakovich’s two other ballets, presents the opportunity for them to be returned to the stage, after decades of oblivion, in their original form.