Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya (; 20 November 1925 – 2 May 2015) was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress. In post-Soviet times, she held both Lithuanian and Spanish citizenship.Maya Plisetskaya profile, viola.bz; accessed 2 May 2015.Plisetskaya and Shchedrin settle in Lithuania, upi.com; accessed 4 May 2015.Two greats of world ballet win Spanish Nobels , expatica.com; accessed 4 May 2015. She danced during the Soviet era at the Bolshoi Theatre under the directorships of Leonid Lavrovsky, then of Yury Grigorovich; later she moved into direct confrontation with him. In 1960, when famed Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova retired, Plisetskaya became prima ballerina assoluta of the company.
Her early years were marked by political repression and loss. Her father, Mikhail Plisetski, a Soviet official, was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938, during the Great Purge. Her mother, theater and silent film actress Rachel Messerer, was arrested in 1938 and imprisoned for a few years, then held in a concentration camp together with her infant son, . The older children were faced with the threat of being put in an orphanage but were cared for by maternal relatives. Maya was adopted by their aunt Sulamith Messerer, and Alexander was taken into the family of their uncle Asaf Messerer; both Alexander and Azary eventually became solo dancers of the Bolshoi.
Plisetskaya studied ballet at The Bolshoi Ballet School from age nine, and she first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre when she was eleven. She studied ballet under the direction of Elizaveta Gerdt and also her aunt, Sulamith Messerer. Graduating in 1943 at the age of eighteen, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet company, quickly rising to become their leading soloist. In 1959, during the Thaw Time, she started to tour outside the country with the Bolshoi, then on her own. Her fame as a national ballerina was used to project the Soviet Union's achievements during the Cold War. Premier Nikita Khrushchev considered her to be "not only the best ballerina in the Soviet Union, but the best in the world".
As an artist, Plisetskaya had an inexhaustible interest in new roles and dance styles, and she liked to experiment on stage. As a member of the Bolshoi until 1990, she had international exposure and her skills as a dancer changed the world of ballet. She set a higher standard for ballerinas, both in terms of technical brilliance and dramatic presence. As a soloist, Plisetskaya created a number of leading roles, including Juliet in Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet; Phrygia in Yakobson's Spartacus (1958); in Grigorovich's ballets : Mistress of the Copper Mountain in The Stone Flower (1959); Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty (1963); Mahmene Banu in (1965); Alberto Alonso's Carmen Suite (1967), choreographed especially for her; and Maurice Béjart's Isadora (1976). Among her most acclaimed roles were Kitri in Don Quixote, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, and The Dying Swan, first danced as a pre-graduate student under the guidance of Sulamith Messerer. A fellow dancer said that her dramatic portrayal of Carmen, reportedly her favorite role, "helped confirm her as a legend, and the ballet soon took its place as a landmark in the Bolshoi repertoire". Her husband, composer Rodion Shchedrin, wrote the scores to a number of her ballets.
Having become "an international superstar" and a continuous "box office hit throughout the world", Plisetskaya was treated by the Soviet Union as a favored cultural emissary. Although she toured extensively during the same years that other prominent dancers defected, including Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Alexander Godunov and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Plisetskaya always refused to defect. In 1991, she published her autobiography, I, Maya Plisetskaya."Maya Plisetskaya, ballerina – obituary". Telegraph. 4 May 2015.
Early life Plisetskaya was born on 20 November 1925 in Moscow,Current Biography Yearbook, H. W. Wilson Co., 1964, p. 331. into a prominent family of Lithuanian Jewish descent, most of whom were involved in the theater or film. Her mother, Rachel Messerer, was a silent-film actress. Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Asaf Messerer was a maternal uncle and Bolshoi prima ballerina Sulamith Messerer was a maternal aunt. Her father, Mikhail Plisetski (Misha), was a diplomat, engineer and mine director; he was not involved in the arts, although he was a fan of ballet.Popovich, Irina. , The Russia Journal, Issue 10, May 1999. Her brothers Alexander Plisetski and Azari Plisetski became renowned ballet masters, and her niece Anna Plisetskaya would also become a ballerina. She was the cousin of theater artist Boris Messerer.
In 1938, her father was arrested and later executed during the Stalinist purges, during which thousands of people were murdered."Maya Plisetskaya: Ballerina whose charisma and talent helped her fight the Soviet authorities and achieve international fame", The Independent, U.K. 5 May 2015 According to ballet scholar Jennifer Homans, her father was a committed Communist, and had earlier been "proclaimed a national hero for his work on behalf of the Soviet coal industry". Soviet leader Vyacheslav Molotov presented him with one of the Soviet Union's first manufactured cars. Her mother was arrested soon after and together with her seven-month-old baby Azary sent to a labor camp (ALZhIR) in Akmola Region, Kazakhstan for the next three years.They were sent to ALZHIR camp, a Russian acronym for the Akmolinskii Camp for Wives of Traitors of the Motherland, "enemies of the people" near Akmolinsk Maya was taken in by their maternal aunt, ballerina Sulamith Messerer, until her mother was released in 1941.
During the years without her parents, while barely a teenager, Plisetskaya "faced terror, war, and dislocation", writes Homans. As a result, "Maya took refuge in ballet and the Bolshoi Theater."Homans, Jennifer (2010). Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. Random House. pp. 383–386. As her father was stationed at Spitzbergen to supervise the coalmines in Barentsburg, she had stayed there for four years with her family, from 1932 to 1936.Dagens Næringsliv, the article "Svanens død" ("Death of the Swan"), p. 19, 9 May 2015 She subsequently studied at the Bolshoi School under the ex-ballerina of the Mariinsky imperial ballet, the great Elizaveta Gerdt. Maya first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre when she was eleven. In 1943, at the age of eighteen, Plisetskaya graduated from the Bolshoi School. She joined the Bolshoi Ballet, where she performed until 1990.
Career
Performing in the Soviet Union From the beginning, Plisetskaya was a different kind of ballerina. She spent a very short time in the corps de ballet after graduation and was quickly named a soloist. Her bright red hair and striking looks made her a glamorous figure on and off the stage. "She was a remarkably fluid dancer but also a very powerful one", according to The Oxford Dictionary of Dance.Craine, Debra and Mackrell, Judith (2010). The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. pp. 352–353. "The robust theatricality and passion she brought to her roles made her an ideal Soviet ballerina." Her interpretation of The Dying Swan, a short showcase piece made famous by Anna Pavlova, became her calling card. Plisetskaya was known for the height of her jumps, her extremely flexible back, the technical strength of her dancing, and her charisma. She excelled both in adagio and allegro, which is very unusual in dancers.
Despite her acclaim, Plisetskaya was not treated well by the Bolshoi management. She was Jewish at a time of Soviet anti-Zionist campaigns combined with other oppression of suspected dissidents. Her family had been purged during the Stalinist era, and she had a defiant personality. As a result, Plisetskaya was not allowed to tour outside the country for sixteen years after she had become a member of the Bolshoi.
The Soviet Union used the artistry of such dancers as Plisetskaya to project its achievements during the Cold War period with United States. Historian Christina Ezrahi notes, "In a quest for cultural legitimacy, the Soviet ballet was shown off to foreign leaders and nations." Plisetskaya recalls that foreigners "were all taken to the ballet. And almost always, Swan Lake ... Khrushchev was always with the high guests in the loge", including Mao Zedong and Stalin.Ezrahi, Christina (2012) . Swans of the Kremlin. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 68, 142.
Ezrahi writes, "the intrinsic paranoia of the Soviet regime made it ban Plisetskaya, one of the most celebrated dancers, from the Bolshoi Ballet's first major international tour", as she was considered "politically suspect" and was "non-exportable". In 1948, the Zhdanov Doctrine took effect, and with her family history, and being Jewish, she became a "natural target . . . publicly humiliated and excoriated for not attending political meetings". As a result, dancing roles were continually denied her and for sixteen years she could tour only within the Eastern Bloc. She became a "provincial artist, consigned to grimy, unrewarding bus tours, exclusively for local consumption", writes Homans.
In 1958, Plisetskaya received the title of the People's Artist of the USSR. That same year, she married the young composer Rodion Shchedrin, whose subsequent fame she shared. Wanting to dance internationally, she rebelled and defied Soviet expectations. On one occasion, to gain the attention and respect from some of the country's leaders, she gave one of the most powerful performances of her career, in Swan Lake, for her 1956 concert in Moscow. Homans describes that "extraordinary performance":
International tours
Soviet leader Khrushchev was still concerned, writes historian David Caute, that "her defection would have been useful for the West as anti-Soviet propaganda". She wrote him "a long and forthright expression of her patriotism and her indignation that it should be doubted". Subsequently, the travel ban was lifted in 1959 on Khrushchev's personal intervention, as it became clear to him that striking Plisetskaya from the Bolshoi's participants could have serious consequences for the tour's success. In his memoirs, Khrushchev writes that Plisetskaya "was not only the best ballerina in the Soviet Union, but the best in the world".
Able to travel the world as a member of the Bolshoi, Plisetskaya changed the world of ballet by her skills and technique, setting a higher standard for ballerinas both in terms of technical brilliance and dramatic presence. Having allowed her to tour in New York, Khrushchev was immensely satisfied upon reading the reviews of her performances. "He embraced her upon her return: 'Good girl, coming back. Not making me look like a fool. You didn't let me down.'"
Within a few years, Plisetskaya was recognized as "an international superstar" and a continuous "box office hit throughout the world". The Soviet Union treated her as a favored cultural emissary, as "the dancer who did not defect". Although she toured extensively during the same years that other dancers defected, including Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, "Plisetskaya always returned to Russia", wrote historian Tim Scholl.
Plisetskaya explains that for her generation, and her family in particular, defecting was a moral issue: "He who runs to the enemy's side is a traitor." She had once asked her mother why their family didn't leave the Soviet Union when they had the chance, at the time living in Norway. Her mother said that her father "would have abandoned [her] with the children instantly" for even asking. "Misha would never have been a traitor."
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