HOMMAGE À PLISETSKAYA-March 27, 1988

February 2016 
Brooklyn Academy of Music paid homage to Russia's Mariinsky Ballet (February 24-28, 2016), which paid its own tribute to Maya Plisetskaya. Talya Zax writes "Maya Plisetskaya's Spirit Dances On".  Click here for her review:

March 27, 1998
It was a magical, ethereal evening of ballet that I will always treasure. Michael Dukakis, the democratic nominee for president that year, and his wife Kitty were in attendance and took the stage at intermission to address the enraptured audience. 

 


"MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER"
  
Wang Center
Sunday, March 27, 1988  8:00 PM
Esquire Jauchem, Producing Director 
 
The American-Soviet Cultural 
Exchange Festival

                                        presents

HOMMAGE À PLISETSKAYA 

Mikhail Baryshnikov -- Guest Performer 

Sarah Caldwell, Artistic Director
John Cunningham, Managing Director


                                       PRELUDE
Music-Johann Sebastian Bach
Choreography-V. Vasiliov/N.Kasatkinah
    Maya Plisetskaya         Nikolai Fadeyechev 

                              
                         FLOODS OF SPRING 
Music-Sergei Rachmaninoff
Choreography-Asaf Messerer 
             Inna Petrova                  Leonid Nikonov

                            
                        DON QUIXOTE
                                    Fragments from Act 1
Music-L. Minkus
Choreography-Alexander Gorsky
             Maya Plisetskaya          Vladimir Tikhonov
                                       Grand Pas de Deux 
            Alla Artiushkina                         Viktor Barykin 
                                              with
             Erica Luzina                      Maria Zubkova
                                             and
                         Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet  
   

                                                     ROSE MALADE  
Music-Gustav Mahler
Choreography-Roland Petit
           Maya Plisetskaya               Boris Yefimov


                                    INTERMISSION


                                       APOLLO
Music-Igor Stravinsky
Choreography-George Balanchine
     MIKHAIL BARYSHINIKOV          Apollo
     Susan Jaffe                              Terpsichore
     Christine Dunham                   Polyhymnia 
     Leslie Browne                          Calliope 
                                             with 
                          The Festival Symphony  
                           Robert Irving, Conductor

Apollo was the first classical ballet created (not simply revised) for Diaghilev in the 20 years that followed Fokine's Les Sylphides. Apollo was first performed by Diaghilev's Ballet Russes on June 12, 1928, and entered the repertory of American Ballet Theater on April 25, 1943, at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City.


                                   INTERMISSION


                                      "FOR MAYA" 
                            ERRAND INTO THE MAZE 
Music-Gian-Carlo Menotti
Choreography-Martha Graham 

First performed: February 28, 1947 
"There is an errand into the maze of the heart's darkness in order to face and do battle with creature of Fear. There is the accomplishment of the errand, the instant of triumph, and the emergence from the dark." 
         Terese Capucilli          Kenneth Topping
   

                                       ISADORA
Music-Claude Rouget de Lisle
Choreography -Maurice Bejart
                               Maya Plisetskaya


                                       SPARTACUS 
Music-Aram Khachaturian
Choreography-Leonid Jacobson 
                            Adagio of Phrygia and Spartacus
                      Maya Plisetskaya     Dmitri Biegak 
Adagio of Aegina and Crassus-Choreography by Yurly Grigorovich
            Alla Artiushkina      Vitaly Artiushkin
                                        and
                    Artists of the Bolshoi Ballet


                                      RAYMONDA
                                       Fragments
Music-Alexander Glazounov
Choreography-Marius Petipa
   Maya Plisetskaya    Nikolai Fadeyechev
                                     Pas de Deux
Choreography-M. Petipa/Yurly Grigorovich   
          Nina Ananiashvali             Andris Liepa


                               THE DYING SWAN 
    (Le cygne from Le Carnaval des Animaux)
Music-Camille Saint-Saëns
Choreography-Mikhail Fokine
                              Maya Plisetskaya




Maya Plisetskaya, age 62, performing The Dying Swan in Boston for The American-Soviet Cultural Exchange Festival:

March 1988
Christine Temin of the Boston Globe: 
"An Evening that was purely Plisetskaya"

"The ballerina closed the program with her signature 'The Dying Swan.'" Plisetskaya's swan doesn't go meekly; she's a doomed, occasionally defiant, heroine , right up until the final flick of the wrist. The Boston crowd adored her, and so she did the number a second time."

Sophia Kishkovashy for the NY Times upon Ms Plisetskaya's death in May 2015 in Munich at the age of 89: "Maya Plisetskaya was one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century and virtually the embodiment of the Bolshoi for decades." Click here:

Judith Cruickshank for The Guardian writes "Maya Plisetskaya, who has died aged 89, was one of the most important ballerinas of the Soviet era...": Click here:  

 



The Telegraph--Maya Plisetskaya, ballerina-obituary--
published a detailed account of her life with many photographs.
Click here: 

In 1988

Pamela Sommers for The Washington Post: Click here:

                       

Anna Kisselgoff for the New York Times: "Bravissima" Click here:
 

In her 1994 autobiography, I, Maya Plisetskaya, Maya discusses her life as a dancer. Click here: