Abstract: The subject of this research is Béla Bartók pantomime ballet “The Miraculous Mandarin”, reviewed as an example of manifestation of the expressionist aesthetics in the composer’s creative work. During the prolonged period of time within the Russian musicology, the composing work of Bartók was being explored through the prism of examination and transformation of the Hungarian folklore; the belonging of his music to the expressionist direction was even out of question. Some scholars very carefully considered “The Miraculous Mandarin” ballet expressionistic. The author makes an attempt to examine this oeuvre from the perspective of its belonging to the expressionistic aesthetics, as well as determine its features in the composer’s musical language. During the course of this research, the author detected certain peculiarities of reconceptualization by composer the used literary storyline, properties of the musical description of the characters, as well as certain specificity of the musical-expressive means, which allows considering the ballet a real example of the expressionistic art. The article illustrates the examples of musical solutions and identifies multiple parameters of dramaturgy: various interpretations of compositional structure of the ballet; characteristic manifestations of the symmetry principles; specific system of dramaturgical culmination, constructively connected with the “golden ratio” proportions.