Spartacus, first suite from the ballet

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Spartacus is a ballet by Aram Khachaturian. The work follows the exploits of Spartacus, the leader of the slave uprising against the Romans known as the Third Servile War, although the ballet's storyline takes considerable liberties with the historical record. Although Soviet authorities approved of the ballet, apparently seeing it as an allegory of the Russian people throwing off their tsarist oppressors, it seems quite possible to interpret its message as referring to Russians under communism rebelling against their own oppressive Soviet leaders. Khachaturian, after all, had spent much of his life under the watchful eye of Joseph Stalin, and he had seen friends and colleagues disappear into the night.