Maya Plisetskaya
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300088571
- eISBN:
- 9780300130713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300088571.003.0014
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya describes how she learned to be a member of the Bolshoi Theater. The Adolphe Adam ballet, which ran in Leningrad for a long time, was just premiering on the Moscow ...
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In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya describes how she learned to be a member of the Bolshoi Theater. The Adolphe Adam ballet, which ran in Leningrad for a long time, was just premiering on the Moscow stage. Leonid Lavrovsky set Giselle on Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, against whom Maya was often pitted. Ulanova danced Juliet in the Moscow premiere of Romeo and Juliet. Maya began rehearsing her next ballet, Raymonda.Less
In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya describes how she learned to be a member of the Bolshoi Theater. The Adolphe Adam ballet, which ran in Leningrad for a long time, was just premiering on the Moscow stage. Leonid Lavrovsky set Giselle on Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, against whom Maya was often pitted. Ulanova danced Juliet in the Moscow premiere of Romeo and Juliet. Maya began rehearsing her next ballet, Raymonda.
Anne Searcy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- October 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190945107
- eISBN:
- 9780190945138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190945107.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, ...
More
Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.Less
Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.
Maya Plisetskaya
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300088571
- eISBN:
- 9780300130713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300088571.003.0032
- Subject:
- Music, Dance
In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya recounts her April 1959 tour to America with her ballet family. The entire tour lasted seventy-three days and took Maya's group to the major U.S. cities. On this ...
More
In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya recounts her April 1959 tour to America with her ballet family. The entire tour lasted seventy-three days and took Maya's group to the major U.S. cities. On this tour Maya danced in Swan Lake, The Stone Flower, and Walpurgisnacht while Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova danced in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and several concert numbers. Both ballerinas were centers of attention. While in America, Maya and her husband Rodion Shchedrin did not have any thoughts of defecting to the West. Maya made friends with Leonard Bernstein and Artur Rubinstein, among other personalities, and met several Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and Henry Fonda. She also saw some of her American relatives.Less
In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya recounts her April 1959 tour to America with her ballet family. The entire tour lasted seventy-three days and took Maya's group to the major U.S. cities. On this tour Maya danced in Swan Lake, The Stone Flower, and Walpurgisnacht while Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova danced in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and several concert numbers. Both ballerinas were centers of attention. While in America, Maya and her husband Rodion Shchedrin did not have any thoughts of defecting to the West. Maya made friends with Leonard Bernstein and Artur Rubinstein, among other personalities, and met several Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, and Henry Fonda. She also saw some of her American relatives.
