芭蕾的傳奇人物：俄國芭蕾舞星 - 瑪雅．普麗瑟斯卡雅

瑪雅．普麗瑟斯卡雅

1925年，Maya Plisetskaya  瑪雅．普麗瑟斯卡雅出生在莫斯科的一個猶太藝術世家，80多年的人生經曆豐富卻不乏坎坷。1938年，她的父親被前蘇聯當局處死，母親被押送古拉度群島（著名集中營），她和當時才7個月大的弟弟不得不跟著姨母，芭蕾舞演員Sulamith Messerer生活。姨母將她送進了當時的皇家芭蕾舞學校學習，在學校時，Maya就有了很多的表演機會，直到1943年畢業加盟莫斯科大劇院。
和許多從群舞開始奮鬥的明星們不同的是，天分出眾的Maya一畢業就擔任了劇院的主要演員，40年代她演出的《天鵝之死》好評如潮，非常優雅的手臂線條表現出的流動感尤其感人。同時，她的技術在當時首屈一指，舞蹈優雅精致，令人難忘。

1947年開始，Maya主演了《天鵝湖》，《睡美人》全劇，1958年她獲得蘇聯“人民藝術家”稱號，同年與小她7歲的作曲家Rodion Shchedrin（羅季翁.謝德林，1932－）結婚，這段感情一直持續至今，在她的藝術道路上有非常大的影響。

Maya Plisetskaya in British documentary 1986. Майя Плисецкая.

這可是80歲的Maya Plisetskaya 在表演芭蕾舞《卡門》

Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya ( Russian : Майя Михайловна Плисецкая ; born November 20 , 1925 ) is a retired Russian ballet dancer, frequently cited as one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th Century . Maya danced during the Soviet era at the same time as the great Galina Ulanova , and took over from her as principal of the Bolshoi in 1960. Maya Plisetskaya is a naturalized Spanish citizen.

Maya Plisetskaya was born in Moscow into a prominent Jewish family. She went to school in Spitsbergen , where her father worked as an engineer and mine director.

In 1938, her father was executed during the Stalinist purges , possibly because he had hired a friend who had been a secretary to Leon Trotsky . Her mother Rachel Plisetskaya (or Ra Messerer ), a silent-film actress, was arrested and sent to a labor camp ( Gulag ) in Kazakhstan , together with Maya's seven-month old baby brother. ^[3] Thereupon Maya was adopted by her maternal aunt, the ballerina Sulamith Messerer , until her mother was released in 1941.

Maya studied under the great ballerina of imperial school, Elizaveta Gerdt . She first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre when she had just turned 11 years of age. In 1943, she graduated from the choreographic school and joined the Bolshoi Ballet, where she would perform until 1990.

From the beginning, Maya was a different kind of ballerina. Unlike many ballerinas, she did not spend any time in the corps de ballet . She was named a soloist immediately after graduation. Her bright red hair and striking looks made her a glamorous figure on and off the stage. Her long arms had a fluidity that to this day remains unmatched; her interpretation of The Dying Swan , a short showcase piece made famous by Anna Pavlova , became Maya's calling card. Maya was known for the height of her jumps, her extremely flexible back, the technical strength of her dancing, and her charisma.

Despite her acclaim, Maya was not treated well by the Bolshoi management. She was Jewish in an anti-Semitic climate, her family had been purged during the Stalinist era and her personality was defiant, so she was not allowed to tour outside the country for six years after joining the Bolshoi. It wasn't until 1959 that Nikita Khrushchev permitted her to travel abroad, and the world got to see Maya Plisetskaya. She changed the world of ballet forever, setting the bar higher for ballerinas everywhere, both in terms of technical brilliance and dramatic presence.

Maya's most acclaimed roles included Odette-Odile in Swan Lake (1947) and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty (1961). In 1958, she was honoured with the title of the People's Artist of the USSR and married the young composer Rodion Shchedrin , in whose subsequent fame she shared.

After Galina Ulanova left the stage in 1960, Maya Plisetskaya was proclaimed the prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre . In the Soviet screen version of Anna Karenina , she played Princess Tverskaya. In 1971, her husband wrote a ballet on the same subject, where she would play the leading role. Anna Karenina was also her first attempt at choreography. Other choreographers who created ballets for her include Yury Grigorovich , Roland Petit , Alberto Alonso , and Maurice Bejart .

In the 1980s, Plisetskaya and Shchedrin spent much time abroad, where she worked as the artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet in 1984–5, then the Spanish National Ballet of Madrid from 1987–9. At the age of 65, she finally retired from the Bolshoi as a soloist. On her 70th birthday, she debuted in Bejart's number choreographed for her and entitled "Ave Maya". Since 1994, she has been presiding over the annual international ballet competitions called Maya. In 1996 she was named President of the Imperial Russian Ballet.

She was forced to be member of the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public by being threatened with having her passport revoked. When she traveled abroad in the 1960s, the Soviet secret police requested that she encourage the interest of Robert Kennedy .

On her 80th birthday, the Financial Times summed up current opinion about Maya in the following words: "She was, and still is, a star, ballet's 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." The following year, Emperor Akihito presented to her the Premium Imperiale , informally considered a Nobel Prize for Art.

Later in life as she was touring in the United States she joined the fight for women's rights.

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