On April 14 & 15 2011 Athens audience will be privileged to see legendary Bolshoi Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and Stars from Mariinsky, Bolshoi, English National Ballet, Royal Ballet and Carlos Saura Flamenco Company in a Gala evenings dedicated to Maya Plisetskaya.
ELVA EVENTS & DAVID MAKHATELI (Artistic Director of the Gala) are delighted to present this unforgettable event.
Maya Plisetskaya, considered one of the greatest dancers of the XX century. A legend. She has reached the more prestigious title than an artist of this field can obtain: “Prima ballerina assoluta”. She was born in Moscow in 1925 and nationalized Spanish in 1993. Maya Plisetskaya began in the world of the dance when she was three years old. In 1934 she entered the Moscow School of Dance and when she became 18 she graduated in the Choreographic School of the great Bolshoi Theater in which she entered a few months later to become prima ballerina. In the company, she took her first steps as a professional dancing her immortal rendering of The dying swan.
Plisetskaya is considered the more influential dancer to grace the stage since Anna Pavlova and one of the highest exponents of the classical dance. The critics said of her that she has a sweeping personality and an own unmistakable style. Among the numerous works that she has interpreted around the world, it stands out Swan lake, which she danced for the first time in 1947. Her versatility has allowed her to interpret parts as the jealous Zarema of The fountain of Bakhchisaray, the mischievous Kitri in Don Quixote or the heroic Laurencia in the ballet based on Fuenteovejuna. Raymonda, Julieta, The legend of love, Phrygia and Aegina in Spartacus, The little humpback horse, The nutcracker and The sleeping beauty. In 1967 she danced Carmen and in 1972 Ana Karenina with a scores of her husband, the composer and pianist Rodion Shchedrin. In Karenina Plisetskaya assumed the tasks of stage director and choreographer. In 1973, Roland Petit created for her La rose malade and years later Maurice Béjart choreographed for her Isadora. In 1984 she directed the Ballet of the Opera of Rome and between 1987 and 1990 the Ballet Lírico Nacional of Spain. In 1994 she presented in Moscow her memories, I, Maya Plisetskaya, which has been translated into fourteen languages. On 2000 she founded with her husband the Foundation Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin, located in the German city of Mainz, with the purpose to preserve, to document and to facilitate the free access to the artistic work of both. In 2000, Béjart choreographed for her Ave Maya. In 2007 she published her second book of memories titled Thirteen years later.
In 1958 she married the composer Rodion Shchedrin. The same year she was honored with the title of the People´s Artist of the USSR. She received the Anna Pavlova in Paris (1962), the Lenin Prize (1964), the distinction of Hero of the Socialist Work (1985), the Legion of Honor of France (1986), the Medalla a las Bellas Artes of Spain (1991) and the highest decoration of her country, the Medal to the Service of Russia, that she has received in two occasions (1995 and 2000). Prince of Asturias of the Arts in 2005 in Oviedo, Spain. The Praemium Imperiale of Japan in 2006. She is doctor honoris causa by the universities of Lomonosov of Moscow and the Sorbonne of Paris. In 2009, she received in Italy the Vittorio de Sicca Award and in Moscow the prize Soul of Dance in the category of Legend. On the occasion of a gala for her 80th birthday, where she interpreted Ave Maya, the Financial Times said of her: ¨Maya was and still is, a star, ballet monstre sacre, the final statement about theatrical glamour, a flaring, flaming beacon in a world of dimly twinkling talents, a beauty in the world of prettiness.¨
