I, Maya Plisetskaya / Maya Plisetskaya ; translated by Antonina W. Bouis ; foreword by Tim Scholl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Plisetskaia, Maiia Mikhailovna, 1926-

Standardized Title:

I͡A, Maĭi͡a Pliset͡skai͡a-- English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plisetskaia, Maiia Mikhailovna, 1926-.

Plisetskaia, Maiia Mikhailovna.

Ballerinas--Soviet Union--Biography.

Ballerinas.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 386 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Maya Plisetskaya, one of the world's foremost dancers, rose to become a prima ballerina of Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet after an early life filled with tragedy and loss. In this spirited memoir, Plisetskaya reflects on her personal and professional odyssey, presenting a unique view of the life of a Soviet artist during the troubled period from the late 1930's to the 1990's. Plisetskaya recounts the execution of her father in the Great Terror and her mother's exile to the Gulag. She describes her admission to the Bolshoi in 1943, the roles she performed there, and the endless petty harassments she endured, from both envious colleagues and Party officials. Refused permission for six years to tour with the company, Plisetskaya eventually performed all over the world, working with such noted choreographers as Roland Petit and Maurice Béjart. She recounts the tumultuous events she lived through and the fascinating people she met-among them the legendary ballet teacher Agrippina Vaganova, George Balanchine, Frank Sinatra, Rudolf Nureyev, and Dmitri Shostakovich. And she provides fascinating details about testy cocktail-party encounters with Khrushchev, tours abroad when her meager per diem allowance brought her close to starvation, and KGB plots to capitalize on her friendship with Robert Kennedy. Gifted, courageous, and brutally honest, Plisetskaya brilliantly illuminates the world of Soviet ballet during an era that encompasses both repression and cultural détente. Still prima ballerina assoluta with the Bolshoi Ballet, Maya Plisetskaya also travels around the world performing and lecturing. At the Bolshoi's gala celebrating her 75th birthday, President Vladimir Putin presented her with Russia's highest civilian honor, the medal for service to the Russian state, second degree. Tim Scholl is professor of Russian language and literature at Oberlin College. Antonina W. Bouis is the prize-winning translator of more than fifty books, including fiction, nonfiction, and memoirs by such figures as Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Contents:

The dacha and Sretenka Street

What I was like at five

Relatives

Spitzbergen

I study ballet

Back in school and father's arrest

My mother disappears

Chimkent

Concert for the Cheka

Tchaikovsky's Impromptu

The war

My first year at the Bolshoi Theater

The apartment on Shchepkinsky Passage

Mastering the ABCs of the theater

Raymonda

Swan Lake

Youth festivals

My injuries, my healers

Who'll get whom!

Stalin's birthday

I dance in Don Quixote

I dance in Golovanov's opera

Life on the road and the end of the Stalinist era

My trip to India

Persecution

How I didn't go to London

While the company was in London

How I dressed

What a person needs

Shchedrin

Life on Kutuzovsky Prospect

I go to America

Seventy-three days

How we were paid

Paris meetings

Work with Yakobson

Why I did not stay in the West

Marc Chagall draws me

November 20

How Carmen Suite was born

Work with Roland Petit and Maurice Bjart

A lyrical digression

My ballets

My ballets (continued)

I want justice

Work in Italy

Work in Spain

Untitled

Years of wandering

Curfew.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9786611730833

9781281730831

1281730831

9780300130713

0300130716

OCLC:

923587742