The celebrations of Maya Plisetskaya’s 80th birthday continue round the world, a fact unprecedented and heart-warming.
On Sunday night the Royal Opera House will be the setting for a succession of variously splendid duets and solo in order to celebrate an iconic Russian ballerina.
The programme will be presented by the artists from Moscow and St Petersburg and Royal Ballet dancers.
Uliana Lopatkina and Ilya Kuznetsov in La Rose malade, a grieving duet to the Mahler fifth symphony adagio, which Roland Petit made for Plisetskaya.
Dazzling duet of Alina Cojocaru and Stephen McRae (vivid in dynamics, witty) from Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes,
fascinated Alexey Ratmansky’s Middle Duet from Svetlana Zakharova and Andrey Merkuriev to a score from Yury Khanin
And not least a Dying Swan from Irma Nioradze and the duet from Scheherazade featured by astonishing Farukh Ruzimatov.
Maya Plisetskaya will be dancing her fiddly little Béjart solo, Ave Maya, that will remind the audience of performances in Carmen and Bolero, sketching steps, her torso and arms replete with dance, beautiful as her own icon. A star. A fire- storm. An affirmation of life.
