Maya Plisetskaya

Mariinsky Theatre

A look at the rich history of the Mariinsky Theatre in the birth and growth of the Russian tradition in opera, music and ballet.

Maya Plisetskaya - Diva of Dance

Maya Plisetskaya was born in Moscow in 1925 and studied at the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet School, becoming a principal dancer with the Bolshoi on graduating in 1943. She became prima ballerina in 1962, and after being excluded for political reasons many years from tours to the West, she was finally in 1959 allowed to join the American tour with the Bolshoi. She soon gained recognition as one of the world's foremost ballerinas, combining flawless technique with a sensitivity to emotional nuance and becoming the first to truly understand how to combine outstanding dance skills with dramatic expression. This documentary features footage of her greatest successes as a ballerina together with an interview in which Plisetskaya describes her life as a dancer, from Stalin to perestroika, giving an insight into the life of an artist in this extraordinary chapter of Russian history.

Lady with the Dog

Rodion Shchedrin's ballet based on the short story of the same name by Anton Chekhov, staged by the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of the USSR. The inimitable Maya Plisetskaya in the on-screen version of the theatrical ballet, which is an original production, solved by means of a television movie.

M.K.C. Zodiakas

The plot is based on the fate of the artist, reflected in art, which always accompanies people's lives, as well as dreams, pain or joy...

Bolshoi Ballet: Don Quixote

Product Description ••••• A complete 1978 performance of this classic ballet stars the magnificent Nadezhda Pavlova and Vyacheslav Gordeev; the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra is conducted by Alexander Kopilov. DVD Bonus: Scenes from Don Quixote filmed at the Bolshoi in 1964 and starring the legendary dancers Maya Plisetskaya and Maris Liepa; Bolshoi Orchestra conducted by Youri Fayer.

Carmen Suite

The plot centres on the tragic fate of Carmen, a gypsy girl, and Jose, a soldier who has fallen in love with her and whom Carmen leaves for the young Torero.

Fantasia

A TV movie inspired by Ivan Turgenev's Torrents of Spring.

Anna Karenina

The film is a Bolshoi Ballet version of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina with choreography by Maya Plisetskaya who also took on the titular role. Anna Karenina is a young wife of an older husband. She has an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky. By following her desires Anna complicates her life.

Tchaikovsky

The film is dedicated to the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). It tells of the last twenty years of the great master’s life, of his friendship with Baroness von Meck, an outstanding woman of her time, who for many years was Tchaikovsky’s guardian angel. The film also includes retrospections of the composer’s childhood and adolescent years, with Tchaikovsky’s life poetically recounted against the background of fragments from his operas and ballets performed by the best Russian musicians.

New Year's Abduction

The fire department is preparing for the New Year. Three activists of amateur performances decide to kidnap professional artists for a New Year's concert. A police captain investigates the kidnapping and listens to complaints from the “unkidnapped” artists.

Anna Karenina

The plot of the film is the love of a married woman, Anna Karenina, and a young officer, Aleksei Vronsky. Anna leaves the family in search of happiness to her beloved person. She has to take a very serious step in her life - to part with her son. The attitude of the high society towards her is changing. All this brings a lot of pain and humiliation to the main character. The tragic story of love and betrayal, the fate of a woman, for the sake of passion who decided to change her life irrevocably.

The Little Humpbacked Horse

The Bolshoi Ballet performs the Russian fairy tale of a Queen Maiden (Maya Plisetskaya), a stableboy (Vladimir Vasiliev) and a lucky horse (Alla Shcherbinina).

Khovanshchina

Modest Mussorgsky's final opera, left unfinished at the time of this death in March of 1881.

Swan Lake

the Ballet

Stars of the Russian Ballet

An anthology of three filmed ballets, two written for the film and the third an abridgment of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake". It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. Filmed in color.