The Bolt, Shostakovich's second full-length ballet, followed almost immediately after his first, The Age of Gold. Although Shostakovich had sworn not to undertake another project which he felt was aesthetically uninteresting, he did take on The Bolt, which, in the words of its director, makes Raymonda and Coppelia "seem like works of Shakespeare."

Here is the composer's own distinctly unenthusiastic description of he plot of The Bolt: "The content is very topical. There's a machine. Then it breaks down (problem of wear and tear on equipment). Then they fix it (problem of amortization), and at the same time they buy a new one. Then everyone dances around the new machine. Apotheosis. All this takes three acts."

Such plots were popular in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s: one thinks of Alexander Mosolov's The Iron Foundry and the Symphony of Factory Sirens by Arseny Avraamov. Although composing music about heavy industry and industrial sabotage did not appeal to the modernist Shostakovich, he nonetheless felt compelled by the political situation of the times to compose the music for The Bolt. However, his lack of excitement is palpable in nearly every bar. For the most part, the music consists of short-winded melodies over simplistic harmonies and shallow accompaniments. Even the rhythms are foursquare and bland.

The Bolt had one performance and was closed. Thirty years later, when the Fourth Symphony, The Nose, and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the masterpieces of his early years, were being revived, Shostakovich prevented The Bolt from being brought back to the stage.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide