Maya Plisetskaya, considered one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, died in Germany on Saturday at the age of 89, Bolshoi Theatre director Vladimir Urin announced.
Plisetskaya danced for half a century and her modern choreography and performances charged with eroticism flouted Soviet convention.
“She died of a severe heart attack. The doctors tried everything, but there was nothing they could do,” Urin said, quoted by the TASS news agency, after being informed by the ballerina’s husband, Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin.
Photo: Reuters
“Not just Russia but the entire world knew that Maya Plisetskaya was the symbol of Russian ballet in the 20th century,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to her family.
She is to be buried in Russia.
Born in Moscow on Nov. 20, 1925, Plisetskaya was deprived of her parents early in life. Her engineer father was shot under former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s regime in 1938 for being “an enemy of the people” and her actress mother was accused of being a traitor and sent to a labor camp in Kazakhstan.
Maya Plisetskaya was taken in by her aunt and uncle. She joined the Bolshoi in 1943. During 50 years as a performer, she captivated audiences with the purity of her performances and dazzling looks.
However, it was a career that was far from plain sailing.
She first sparked scandal in 1967 after a Moscow meeting with Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso, who was allowed to create for her the Carmen Suite.
“Carmen — where every gesture, every look, every movement had meaning, was different from all other ballets... The Soviet Union was not ready for this sort of choreography,” Plisetskaya said. “It was war, they accused me of betraying classical dance.”
In 2005, she returned to the stage for a gala performance at the Kremlin to mark her 80th birthday, dancing Ave Maya, a piece that legendary French dancer and choreographer Maurice Bejart dedicated to her.
Bejart, who died in 2007, described Plisetskaya as “dance’s last living legend.”
“Whatever she dances, I feel in her an enormous strength and sensuality, but above all, a modern approach,” he said.
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