27 replies to this topic

[exballetstudent]

I jus read an article online about Maya Plisetskaya. It mentioned that her latest performance (I assume it was the last?) was in 1996, she was at the age of 71. Does anyone know anything about that particular performance? Where and what did she perform? Is she retired from the stage completely or is she into teaching?

[carbro]

I don't know specifically about her Final Performance, but I do know  she danced Dying Swan when she was well into her 60s.  Saw it -- twice.  Both occasions were at Martha Graham galas.  The only times I saw Maya, and the only times I bought tickets to Graham.  On the first of those occasions, she also danced a solo by Ruth St. Denis.  She was swathed in a sari, holding a candle, looking for all the world like pre-Shade Nikiya.  I loved it!

[Mashinka]

I last saw her dance in Paris in November 1998 when she must have been about 73.  For all I know she may still be going.

[jorgen]

Maya will come to Copenhagen next week to attend the premiere, on April 2nd, of Ratmansky's new Anna Karenina with the Royal Danish Ballet.

[exballetstudent]

Ah! After a bit of digging around online, I found some "latest" information about Plisetskaya.  

Maya Plisetskaya Master Class October 1997
http://www.sk-kultur...etition/049.htm

Article issued in 2000 (in russian) [anyone knows Russian? ]
http://www.rusglobus...plisetskaya.htm

I, Maya Plisetskaya.(Excerpt)
Dance Magazine, Oct, 2001
http://www.findartic...cle.jhtml?term=  

Maya Plisetskaya - Biography
from The International Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin Foundation's website
(sort of a time line up to yr 2000)
http://www.shchedrin...ebenslauf_e.htm

[Jane Simpson]

There are some beautiful pictures of Plisetskaya in an item currently for sale on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/...ssPageName=WDVW

[jose manuel]

maya plisetskaya performed a special number created by maurice bejart in a gala to celebrate her 75th anniversary at the bolshoi theatre.

the number was called "ave maya" using the famous "ave maria" music.  it was a short piece in which plisetskaya had two fans in her hands. it was a choreography based on hand and arm movements. plisetskaya was extraordinary and needless to say,she received a standing ovation


jose manuel

[drb]

In one month, 20 November 2005, Maya Plisetskaya will celebrate her 80th birthday.  Here in New York we are reminded of her every  time we visit Lincoln Center, as she stares down upon us from the great Chagall Mural "The Triumph of Music."  It is the red one, to our left as we face The Met.  She had visited Chagall in Paris sometime before the Met opened and had no idea that he was to include her in the mural.  From her autobiography:
(In 1968, on her way to rehearsal at the new Met) "...I stop in my tracks in the plaza by the fountain. I look up. Chagall's tall murals. I look at the left one, reddish orange. A flying sunny angel with a trumpet, a marvelous Ivan Tsarevich playing a green cello, birds of paradise, a two-headed creature with a mandolin at its equine chin, a glazed violin and bow on a blue-sparkling tree. In the top left corner, a colorful flock of ballerinas... one is certainly me, pelvis forward, tight as a bow string, arms behind her back, feet in second position. I did something like that for Chagall to the Mendelssohn Concerto. And Mark Zakharovich had captured that moment."

Great celebrations are planned in Moscow, as reported elsewhere in this forum.  Next February 12, London's Royal Opera House will have a star-studded gala, with Maya present, in her honor:
http://info.royalope...Year=2005&atf=m
Does anyone know if there are any festivities planned in the United States?

I was lucky enough to see her in some of those New York visits, including all the works shown in these photos (click on each photo to make it larger):
http://www.bolshoi.n...v/page-plis.htm
Translating: 1, 2 Isadora, created on her by Maurice Bejart
3 Bejart's Bolero
4 - 6 Carmen Suite, created on her by Alberto Alonso
7 La Rose Malade (Adagietto from Mahler's 5th Symphony), created on her by Roland Petit
8, 9 The Dying Swan (As an encore she repeated the whole thing!).

[Helene]

Re:  the Royal Ballet's tribute:

The website says there will be a "SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY MAYA PLISETSKAYA"

The casting in selections from "the world's favourite ballet repertory" is listed as:

Darcey Bussell
Leanne Benjamin
Miyako Yoshida
Viacheslav Samodurov
Ulyana Lopatkina
Svetlana Zakharova
Farukh Ruzimatov
Andrei Uvarov
Igor Zelensky
Ilse Liepa
Galina Stepanenko
Marianela Nuñez
Thiago Soares
Irek Mukhamedov
Alina Cojocaru
Mara Galeazzi

[carbro]

I'm not likely to make it to London, so on Nov. 20, I will make a special point of pausing before the mural.  I never studied it closely enough to recognize la Plisetskaya.

, but ever so slightly.  About 20 years ago, I wrote a set of lyrics to "If I Only Had a Heart."  They were inspired when the accompanist played it for grands battements, and I heard "I may dance like a camel,/But I'd be just like vanHamel/If I only had technique."  The concluding lines of the last verse are "Would I dare to aspire/To be great as Plisetskaya/If I only had technique?"  I truly doubt it would be a reasonable goal.

[drb]

"Would I dare to aspire/To be great as Plisetskaya", a beautiful rhyme, but only in New York!
In atonement, Maya dancing in Finland just before her 74th birthday.  In Afternoon of a Faun, with Alexey Ratmansky(!) as partner (click on photos to make bigger):
http://www.balletmik...uni1999_eng.php

[drb]

EURO-TV offers a 10+ minute tribute to Maya, from Riga, Latvia (August, 2005).  After about 3 minutes Maya appears and dances Bejart's "Ave Maya" and then has some fun with the audience.
http://www.eurotv.lv...article&sid=592
One clicks on the word Video below the photo.

[FauxPas]

I saw Maya Plisetskaya live on the City Center stage in 1995 as part of a 70th birthday gala.  She danced the Dying Swan and a section of Bejart's Isadora.  The Dying Swan was danced on pointe with firm legs and feet and magical arms that linger in the memory.  The bourrees never wobbled.  Her interpretation was very idiosyncratic.  Her Swan was a tough old bird who was raging against the dying of the light - almost defying death.  She can be seen doing the same solo on the DVD "Essential Ballet" during the Red Square outdoor performance section.

At 70 she was still a slim, vibrant and glamourous woman who radiated energy and vitality.

She supposedly had a partner step on her foot sometime in the early nineties and had some problems after that.  I don't know how much she danced after 1995.

Faux Pas

[bart]

For a  LINK to the Pravda article on the Bolshoi's plans for an 80th birthday celebration:

dirac, on Nov 14 2005, 02:14 PM, said:

The Bolshoi plans a celebration of Maya Plisetskaya's 80th birthday, reports Pravda.

Quote

The program of the festival, which will take place on Bolshoi Theatre's New Stage on November 16-20, includes "Swan Lake," "Don Quixote," and "Carmen Suite" - the performances, which made Maya Plisetskaya a global star of ballet. This time, however, the role of Carmen will be played by Bolshoi's prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, one of the biggest stars of the new generation of Russian ballet.

[drb]

Here is a collection of 40 pictures of the Assoluta, the first at age two.
http://www.mmv.ru/p/ballet/
(first click near the top center: К юбилею Майи Плисецкой
Then click on Фотогалерея)


Here she is in two sets from the 1996 Mikkeli Festival.
Bejart's Isadora:
http://www.balletmik...ora1996_eng.php
and Bejart's Kurozuka:
http://www.balletmik...uka1996_eng.php

In the latter ballet she plays the role Bejart created for the sublime Kabuki onnagata Bando Tamasaburo in 1988.  Her partner is Patrick Dupond, who was also the partner of Tamasaburo.