Maya Plisetskaya: interesting facts. She knew how to drive you crazy: interesting facts about Maya Plisetskaya Interesting facts from the life of Maya Plisetskaya

"Plisetskaya - the pole of magic. Today the great ballerina would have turned 90 years old.

1) As a child, Maya was an extremely mobile child. She started walking at 8 months! All relatives and friends of the family were surprised at such motor abilities of the girl.

Maya Plisetskaya started walking at the age of 8 months

2) When Maya first came to the theater at the age of five, he struck her incredibly. It was a drama theater, without dances and music, but the image of the main character and the atmosphere of the theater impressed the child so much that after the end of the performance, Maya “played out” the scenes she saw for a long time, copied remarks in her speech, which once aroused the playful indignation of her father.

3) Maya inherited her profession from her maternal aunt. Shulamith Messerer was a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater and adopted the girl when her fate took a tragic turn. Soon after Maya turned 13, the father of the family was shot, and her mother was sent to a camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland.

4) "The Dying Swan" - the first number of Maya Plisetskaya. The number was supplied by her aunt. Shulamith made changes to the choreography, and the ballerina went to the audience with her back, not her face.

Maya Plisetskaya's first number was choreographed by her aunt

5) Once Plisetskaya had a chance to work with the great teacher of that time, Agrippina Vaganova. It was Vaganova who suggested that Maya put on "Swan Lake", and even do it in such a way that "the devil felt sick."

Maya Pliseyka played the role of Odile in Swan Lake for 30 years

7) Maya and Rodion Shchedrin were introduced by the ballet Cinderella. Shchedrin was fascinated by Maya and went to almost all of her productions. In 1958, the couple got married, and in 1960 Plisetskaya became the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre.

8) The bright image of Maya Plisetskaya, her uniqueness, femininity and grace drove crazy not only her husband. Maya has become a muse, a source of inspiration for many designers and costume designers.

9) Shchedrin and Plisetskaya did not have children, since Maya made a choice in favor of a career. “There are many families with children, but Maya Plisetskaya is alone,” the ballerina said.

Rodion Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya have been married for half a century

10) The absence of children in marriage did not prevent the spouses from being especially close people to each other. Shchedrin accompanied Maya on tour, dedicated many ballets to his wife and was always there. Rodion Shchedrin and Maya Plisetskaya have been married for half a century.

What do herring, sports, "Bandit" and Maya Plisetskaya have in common - interesting facts from the life of the legend of Russian ballet. The incomparable dancer will forever be remembered by admirers of high art for her magnificent performance of the parts of Odette-Odile. After herself, the ballerina left a bright memory, a lot of vivid quotes and memoirs.

1. As a child, Plisetskaya dreamed of being an actress like her mother, but fate decreed otherwise.. Under Stalin, her parents were repressed (her father was shot), so the girl was brought up by her maternal aunt, thanks to whom Maya got into a ballet school. Childhood dream - to act in films - Plisetskaya realized only in 1967, playing Princess Tverskaya in the drama "Anna Karenina".
2. The Dying Swan number, which later became Maya Mikhailovna's trademark, was staged by her adoptive mother- Soloist of the Bolshoi Theater and ballet teacher Shulamith Messerer. In the production, she focused on the plasticity and beauty of her niece's hands.

   

3. Maya danced the "swan" for more than half a century: for the first time she appeared on stage with this number in 1942 in Sverdlovsk in the evacuation, for the last time - in 1996 in Moscow on Red Square. Before Plisetskaya, Anna Pavlova was considered the best "dying swan". Now, modern ballerinas rarely perform a number, fearing comparison with the great Maya.

   

4. In life, the ballerina was distinguished by an enviable constancy. A vivid confirmation of this is a 50-year marriage, full of love and harmony, with the composer Rodion Shchedrin. As a sign of fidelity, the spouses bequeathed after death to unite their ashes and scatter them over Russia.

   

5. Plisetskaya adhered to the ideas of "childfree", that is, voluntarily abandoned motherhood in favor of a career.

   

6. There were many famous men among Maya's fans.. One of them is politician Robert Kennedy. The ballerina met the president's brother during a tour of America. The new acquaintance was very gallant, gave jewels and flowers. When Robert died in an assassination attempt, Plisetskaya dedicated a New York concert at the Metropolitan Opera to his memory.

   

7. The king of flamenco and the outstanding choreographer Joaquin Cortes, amazed at how Maya performs a Spanish dance, presented her with his talisman - shoes, in which he conquered the whole world.

   

8. The famous ballerina was attracted to the young all her life. Unlike most dancers, she was not afraid to perform in a duet with partners much younger than herself. Over the years, she danced with such rising ballet stars as Godunov, Bogatyrev, Ratmansky.

   

9. Tight, graceful, flexible - Plisetskaya has always been in excellent physical shape.. When asked what the secret of harmony was, she advised: "Eat less." From the diet, the ballerina excluded nightshade, fatty and fried foods, sauces, chocolate, cocoa, dairy products, eggs, meat. Maya Plisetskaya's favorite dish is herring.

   

10. A ballerina who was known as a fashionista, touring abroad, bought fabrics, accessories, shoes, clothes there.. At one time, outfits for Plisetskaya were sewn by Gauthier and Saint Laurent, but after meeting Cardin, she dressed only with him.

    

11. Another significant couturier in the life of a ballet prima was Coco Chanel.. Maya was introduced to the famous Frenchwoman by Serge Lifar. Coco was then 80, but Plisetskaya was impressed by her energy, however, as well as the phrase uttered by Chanel: "Character is destiny."

    

12. The ballerina was distinguished by constancy in relation to aromas. For decades, she has remained faithful to the Bandit perfume, created in the 44th perfumer Robert Piguet. It seemed that the daring, provocative fragrance with masculine notes echoed the essence of Maya herself.

    

13. Plisetskaya rarely posed for fashion magazines, but in 2006 made an exception for El and photographer Bettina Reims.

    

14. The real passion of both the ballerina and her husband was football. In Soviet times, Plisetskaya was a fan of CSKA, and after moving to Munich, you could meet her at the stadium more often than at the opera.

    

15. In honor of the ballerina, the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra created a giant mural "Maya" on one of the Moscow houses. Beautiful and iridescent graffiti with precise geometric shapes and rich colors is 15 m wide and 12 m high. It was dedicated to Plisetskaya's 88th birthday.

    

• Maya Plisetskaya wanted to become an actress as a child, like her mother, silent film actress Rachel Messerer. And ballet was not at all the passion of her life. After Plisetskaya's father was shot and her mother was sent to a camp for the wives of traitors, 13-year-old Maya was adopted by her maternal aunt, Bolshoi Theater soloist, ballerina Shulamith Messerer, from whom she inherited her profession.

• 
  The audience discussed her outfits with great interest. Maya Mikhailovna developed a special relationship with Pierre Cardin - she was the designer's muse, and he created costumes and outfits for her for 30 years. “For me, everything in the fashion world begins and ends with Pierre Cardin. This is the standard of taste, fantasy, beauty ... It never gets old, ”said the ballerina.

• Maya Mikhailovna never liked to train and rehearse: “I think that in the end this extended my stage career: I had unexhausted legs.”

Maya Plisetskaya (2005). Photo: Global Look Press

• In food, the artist was unpretentious: “I like beer with sausages more than sweets ... In general, people have not come up with anything tastier than ordinary bread and butter.”

• 
  Maya Plisetskaya said that “she spied on her“ Dying Swan ”(which later became her calling card) at the Moscow Zoo”: “I went there several times with the sole purpose of peeking at the swan’s plasticity, the shape of the movement of the wings, landing the head on the bend of the neck. I got lucky once. Suddenly, a black swan, a few meters away from me, spread its wings to its full extent, raised its webbed foot-paw and stood on the other in a classic arabesque. He stood for an unbelievably long time. I remember admiring - this is sustainability ... ".

Maya Plisetskaya. Photo: Global Look Press

• Plisetskaya drove many men crazy. In 1962, she met the brother of the President of the United States, Robert Kennedy. He gave her flowers and diamonds, courted, but they remained friends.

• 
  Maya Plisetskaya lived with her husband, composer Rodion Shchedrin, for more than half a century. As the prima herself recalled, they were introduced by the muse and lover of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lilia Brik, who, according to Plisetskaya, loved to bring people together: “Once she asked me to sing a part from the Golden Cockerel on a tape recorder - and then she let Rodion listen to the recording . He has aroused interest in me ... ". Later, Shchedrin was going to write music for a ballet with the participation of Maya Mikhailovna and came to her rehearsal. The ballerina recalled that she met him in a tight black elastic leotard, which emphasized all her virtues, which finally captivated the composer.

24.03.2016

Maya Plisetskaya lived a long life even by modern standards - 89 years. She always kept a great shape, girlish flexibility and harmony. This amazing woman was distinguished by an iron character, but she showed special severity to herself - this is felt even in the concise, without unnecessary "decor" and without any "almond-like" tone of the great ballerina's memoirs. What was the life of Maya Plisetskaya like? Let's get acquainted with some interesting facts.

1. Maya wanted to dance since childhood. The girl was confidently moving towards her intended goal, when suddenly, at the age of 12, her world turned upside down. The terrible 37th year overnight deprived the child of his father, mother and younger brother. The father was arrested, the mother with a two-month-old baby in her arms was sent to a camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland. Maya got into the family of her aunt, who sheltered the girl.
2. Maya managed to continue dancing, but after two years she began to feel pain in her knee. The doctors, whom Maya turned to, issued a verdict: it is urgent to exclude physical activity, otherwise the knee disease can lead to disability. Maya did not listen and did not quit training. And the disease has receded!
3. The talent of the young ballerina soon sparkled so dazzlingly that foreigners were specially taken to performances with her participation. However, the “daughters of the enemy of the people” were not allowed to travel abroad until 1959. Years of humiliating visits to the KGB offices, endless questions and invariable, without explanation, refusals - this could drive anyone into depression. But not Maya. And in 1959 - victory! She was given permission for a 70-day US tour! Since then, her victorious march around the world began.
4. "Crown number" Plisetskaya - "dying swan". No one before or after her was able to create such a surprisingly plastic image. Eyewitnesses say that she spent hours watching the swans, trying to learn how to accurately convey their graceful movements.
5. Plisetskaya had so many awards that, probably, a separate printed work would be needed to list them. People's Artist of the USSR, a gold medalist of Spain for services in the field of fine arts, an honorary professor at Moscow State University and even an honorary doctor of the Sorbonne - this is only a small part of the entire list. And in 1994, she became, figuratively speaking, known outside the Earth - astronomers named the small planet 4626 after her.
6. The brother of the President of the United States, Robert Kennedy, was in love with Maya and gave her flowers and diamonds.
7. The ballerina did not have children, and this is not the result of an accident or illness, but a conscious life choice. Once she felt all the signs of pregnancy, she decided to abandon motherhood in favor of art. This is not an easy decision, not every woman is capable of this.
8. Maya Plisetskaya danced until she was 65!
9. At the age of 70, the ballerina once again took the stage, and not as an honored guest, but in the role in which she spent her whole life - a ballet performer. Especially for her, for this anniversary, Maurice Bejart created the “Ave Maya” number. Plisetskaya was, as always, gorgeous!
10. How did the dancer manage to keep a chiseled figure until old age? She herself gave a very simple and understandable answer to this question: “We need to eat less!”

Plisetskaya became a legend of the 20th and even the 21st centuries. She seemed to be forever. The success that this fragile woman has achieved is simply incredible. Of course, her stage talent helped her a lot in this. But if it were not for hard work, the desire to win, a strong will and a desire to achieve excellence, then Maya Plisetskaya would never have become what she managed to become - a ballet star, whose bright light will not go out many years later.

Away from Moscow, but in December she will come to the presentation of her book and a concert organized in her honor on the stage of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater by the Maris Liepa Foundation. In connection with the anniversary, we decided to recall interesting facts from the life of the legendary ballerina.

1 "Ballet was not the passion of my life." Plisetskaya inherited the profession of her uncle and aunt - the outstanding dancers Big Asaf and Sulamith Messerer. However, it cannot be said that the choice was a foregone conclusion: the ballerina's mother Rachel was a silent film star, aunt Elizaveta played at the Yermolova Theater, uncle Azariy (who took the pseudonym Azarin) was an outstanding actor of the Art Theater. And, according to Plisetskaya, as a child, she "always wanted to play in the drama. I think that I had a vocation for the stage, because always, from childhood, I was interested in doing a role."

2 "The rise is mediocre and the knee is not sold through". They say about Plisetskaya that in ballet she was fifty years ahead of her time. Indeed, this is almost the only ballerina of the past, whose films you watch without discounts - on the imperfect recording technique, on the changed physical data and aesthetics. But the ballerina herself believes that today she would not even be accepted into a ballet school - "an unsqueezed knee and a mediocre rise."

3 As Chiang Kai-shek. Plisetskaya was never afraid to speak. Her first "public performance" will forever be remembered by Rachel Messerer: she found her 3-year-old daughter who had run away into the street, circling in rapture under the loudspeaker to the sounds of the Delibov waltz from "Coppelia" surrounded by a large crowd that had already gathered.

"Stage" debut took place in the first class of the choreographic school. The young choreographer Leonid Yakobson chose Plisetskaya for his act "Conference on Disarmament". “I was the smallest of all. I appeared from behind the curtains in a straw pointed hat. I was afraid of something all the time, twisted my head around, squinting my eyes. Eventually I hid under a chair. All this was supposed to portray the useless ruler of China, Generalissimo Chan Kaishi".

4 The youngest swan. At the age of 14 she danced "The Dying Swan" for the first time. It was set up for her by her aunt, Shulamith Messerer, who recalled: “Two considerations inspired me to do this. Firstly, the amazing beauty of Maya’s hands, the special plasticity of her dance data ... Secondly, in those years, a ballet dancer without a portable We had to give concerts in rural clubs with clumsy floors, or in the Kremlin, where the floors are of the highest grade, but there is no place, and no time to warm up ... Despite Maya's exceptionally expressive face, I put her back to the audience in order to to divert attention from losing stops and focus it on Maya's arms and neck ... The number would not have become Maya's trademark if it were not in tune with her talent. Naturally, dancing "The Swan" for many decades, Maya made the most interesting changes to my production. " Countless versions of this miniature performed by Plisetskaya have been seen in all parts of the world for six (!) decades. She danced it to the accompaniment of the violin, cello (everyone remembers the performance with Mstislav Rostropovich) and even accompanied by the voice of Montserrat Caballe. Plisetskaya herself calculated that she danced "Swan Lake" exactly 800 times, but the number of performed "Swans" could not be counted: "Maybe 50 thousand, maybe 100 thousand times," the ballerina exaggerates. The emotions invested in this image are so diverse that she sometimes encores the number four times in one concert - and never repeats herself in them.

5 A glamorous icon of the Soviet ballet. At a time when Soviet women had to dress up in a cheerful chintz in a single impulse, Plisetskaya struck with extravagance. She was the first among the Soviet ballerinas who began to bring elastic leotards for classes and suitcases of luxurious fabrics for packs from foreign tours. In Paris, Plisetskaya was introduced to fashion trends by Elsa Triolet. Coco Chanel, having invited the ballerina to her fashion house, offered a choice of any outfit from the collection. Costumes for her were created by Yves Saint Laurent and Jean Paul Gaultier. In New York in the mid-1960s, she was photographed in diamonds and furs by "star photographer" Richard Avedon. In 1971, at the Avignon Festival, Nadia Léger introduced Plisetskaya to Pierre Cardin. “I saw her in Carmen and fell in love at first sight,” the couturier admitted. The ballerina became his muse for decades, and she remains absolutely faithful to him, still stunning the audience with her outings in his incredible dresses with trains. "It is he who is a genius, and not I am a monogamous. Cardin created my costumes for the theater and for the cinema - these are royal gifts!" These costumes of fantastic beauty are now in the Bakhrushinsky Museum. In 1998, Plisetskaya and Cardin presented a joint show "Fashion and Dance" in the Kremlin.

6 Golden Duo. “Today I visited Lily Brik. Gerard Philippe and his wife and Georges Sadoul came to visit them. Everyone was very nice and friendly. (very bad, there were no good ones). There were no more guests (there was also the composer Shchedrin), "Plisetskaya noted in 1955 the evening that the composer spent at Bechstein, performing his music. Shchedrin recalled: “I heard Plisetskaya sing Prokofiev’s music from the ballet Cinderella, and the recording struck me. At that time, Prokofiev's music was quite difficult to perceive." But, having first heard each other, they saw love only three years after the first meeting. Her themes were Shchedrin's ballets dedicated to his wife: Anna Karenina, The Seagull, Lady with a Dog.

7 The recipe for her youth. Plisetskaya, unlike most prima ballerinas who preferred experienced reliable partners, preferred to seek out young talents. Among her regular partners were Alexander Bogatyrev and Alexander Godunov, just a few years ago in Japan she danced with Alexei Ratmansky. She does not teach, but has returned to the Bolshoi to help Svetlana Zakharova before the resumption of the Carmen Suite. At the premiere of The Little Humpbacked Horse at the Mariinsky Theater, the ballerina presented diamond earrings to Alina Somova right on stage. Seeing the Moscow schoolgirl Polina Semionova at one competition, she prophesied world fame for her (the prophecy is already coming true), and at the other she convinced the girl from the godforsaken theater "Russian Ballet" that she was waiting for the international stage - and Lyudmila Konovalova dances all the premieres of the Vienna Opera. Plisetskaya loves youth and talent - in all manifestations.

8 "It's absolutely impossible to get away from Plisetskaya." In the performance of Plisetskaya, Princess Betsy Tverskaya in Zarha's film "Anna Karenina" can compete with ballet roles in expressiveness. However, this was not the only film experience of the ballerina. She played Desiree Artaud in Tchaikovsky, Chiurlionis' muse in Zodiac. And then - she offered to make a film based on Turgenev's "Spring Waters" by Anatoly Efros. The director recalled: “It was her idea. To play a dramatic role and dance a ballet part in the same performance ... I, as usual, decided to say “I agree” so as not to offend her, and then get away for one reason or another. I always agree in order to disappear later, although this never works out, and even more so here, because it is absolutely impossible to get away from Plisetskaya. You still think that you will get away, but for some reason you are already going to the ballet class where she rehearses.

Plisetskaya was never seen on the dramatic stage. But in Japan, she played the play "Wings of the Night" in the NO theater: in white socks and theatrical sandals, she portrayed a fairy who descended to earth.

9 One-sided love. In Munich, where Plisetskaya and Shchedrin have been living for decades, it is easier to meet this couple not at the Opera, but at the stadium. When they are in the city, they do not miss a single football match. And this is probably the only place in the world where the great ballerina remains unrecognized. "Soccer fans don't know me. I love football, but it's a one-sided love." Plisetskaya loves sports all her life. "This is a delight. "Civilization" of the body," she says. “And the football players are modern gladiators: how fantastic, powerful they are, what technique they have!” the ballerina admires. In the Soviet years she was a fan of CSKA. that sport even affects ballet, and, recalling Pele's words that in his time there was no such technique, he says that in her time there was no such technique as today in ballet.