Tatiana Kuznetsova. Pas de deux with the fatherland

Pas de deux with the fatherland
Maya Plisetskaya celebrated her anniversary at the Bolshoi Theater

Tatiana Kuznetsova

Publication date: November 22, 2000

Even at the metro, potential spectators were caught by ticket sellers, exhorting: “Buy here, there are no speculators near the theater.” Tickets for 30 rubles for seats from which only the chandelier is visible were offered for $70.

The anniversary began almost on time and almost informally. A fanfare female voice announced: “Maya Plisetskaya and Russian President Vladimir Putin!” The applause gave way to a pause: the announced persons did not appear on stage. The pause was filled by Joseph Kobzon and Andrei Voznesensky, sneaking to their places in the stalls in the beams of television spotlights. With the repeated cry of the backstage herald, the heroine of the evening appeared on the ramp, accompanied by the president. The heroine was radiant and regal, the president was excited and focused. The hall stood up. The ovation lasted about five minutes. The President spoke. Along with homemade preparations like “we are all having a big national holiday” and “we are proud that we can call such an outstanding artist a Russian ballerina,” it sounded clearly improvisational: “We talked here for a short time, and even in a short conversation I felt the character.” Behind the president's back, the owner of the character smiled at the audience. With the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree (I degree - only for Boris Yeltsin), Vladimir Putin, not without trepidation, pierced Cardin’s dress in the area of the ballerina’s chest. Maya Plisetskaya dispensed with thank-you speeches: with a gracious nod she dismissed the president from the stage, waved her hand to the applauding audience and retired backstage.

The first section was given to the laureates of the Maya competition, and, given that the evening ended up lasting for five hours, it was quite possible to do without it. No, the laureates danced well, some even brilliantly. But in this section, only Maya Plisetskaya herself looked worthy of the anniversary, performing a fragment from “Isadora”. The same episode to the music of Franz Schubert, where Maya, sitting on the floor, childishly plays with imaginary pebbles. Isadora's tunic was replaced by a "particular" trouser suit, sandals - by stilettos. But the unbelievably flexible hands remained, the ballerina’s amazing plasticity and frantic energy remained. And the hall burst into applause after this Bezharov joke.

The bucolic repertoire of the first section forced the most impatient to desert: President Putin disappeared, Alexander Pochinok disappeared into the night. But in vain: the second part, not shown on TV due to copyright compliance, became the main artistic event of the evening.

The Warsaw Bolshoi Theater showed Bizet-Shchedrin's Carmen, directed by the famous Swede Mats Ek. This furious performance, where they scream in voices hoarse with passion, where sexual obsession is tantamount to fate, where death is treated with patronizing familiarity, is in no way similar to the modernist “Carmen” by Alberto Alonso, which gave Maya Plisetskaya a second ballet life.

But it was Plisetskaya, who once saw Ek’s production live, who insisted on this royal gift to Muscovites. The Poles danced with European precision and an Ek-like obsession. During the intermission, the first delight left a bitter aftertaste: Russian ballet, unlike its former socialist counterpart, will never ripen to the repertoire of the great Swede.

Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy a little later voiced the thesis about the global superiority of domestic choreography, finding for this a more than strange reason - the mass emigration of Russian artists. Half of the Russians performing at the concert work abroad. From this Shvydkoy made a proud conclusion: “When they say that the dancer Sidorov is from the Netherlands, the soul sings: we gave to the world more than we received.”

The overloaded public was unable to appreciate the third part. Nor the piercing pain of female loneliness (Solo for Two by Mats Ek), stunningly played by Ana Laguna, the last great tragic actress of the ballet stage. Nor the gentle sophistication of Kilian's "Clouds" performed by the chiseled Italians Laura Contardi and Roberto Bolle. Only simple and strong stimuli passed through, like the unprecedented pirouettes (on a bent leg) of the virtuoso from the American Ballet Theater Angel Corella, or the sculptural stops in the air of his colleague Jose Manuel Careno, or the whirlwind of rotations of Galina Stepanenko in an unimaginable medley from "Don Quixote", presented by the Bolshoi Theater.

Everyone was waiting for Maya Plisetskaya's second performance - the world premiere of "Ave Maya", created by Maurice Bejart especially for the anniversary. To the music of Gounod-Bach, a stylized miniature was presented, built on Japanese motifs beloved by the choreographer and ballerina - playing with red and white fans, small steps and spare, multi-valued gestures. The signature floating waves of hands and the final splash of the Dying Swan's hand flashed by. The thinned hall rose in predictable applause. The ballerina encores. I didn’t really like this gift from Bejart: Japanese restraint is better played in the exotic costumes of the Noh theater. For the first time, the maestro created an inaccurate portrait of his beloved heroine.

The finale, set to the music of Tchaikovsky's "1812" overture, was in the spirit of "Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality" with a distinct flavor of Soviet patriotism: the backdrop burst into flames, the ballet folk poured out from behind the scenes, the hero of the day and mummers came out to "God Save the Tsar" the heroes of the First Patriotic War saluted her with sabers, the ovation was drowned in the ringing of bells. Let's leave this kitsch to the director's conscience. Maya Plisetskaya herself, walking along the proscenium with a masterful ballerina's step, casually removing the Minister of Culture backstage and thanking the audience with the free play of her inimitable hands, painted a self-portrait much more authentic than her co-authors.