The age and grace of Plisetskaya beside the overawed
dancers of tomorrow
In last Thursday's performance at the Mariinsky, Plisetskaya's elegance and vigor astounded the audience, leaving them breathless with awe. Many also wondered how a septagenarian could look so good and dance so splendidly.
"Oh! To look like that and move like that at 70," one young American woman in the audience exclaimed.
Plisetskaya's performance was all the more extraordinary considering that she had performed in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater only two days earlier.
It was a return to a stage with memories of both glory and sorrow. Plisetskaya quit the Bolshoi ballet many years ago after bitter artistic disputes with Yuri Grigorovich, the company's authoritarian chief choreographer, and only returned two years ago.
The auburn-haired dancer, famed for her technical virtuosity and graceful arms, transfixed the packed theater last Tuesday evening with a varied repertoire in which she was by turns girlish and flirtatious, strident and frail.
"I feel wonderful," Plisetskaya, surrounded by flowers, said at the end of the four-hour gala. "You know, I may have hit the big time today," she added with a laugh.
Production director Gediminas Taranda had no fears of the effect the show on Plisetskaya.
"Her ability to work is phenomenal. She carries on working long after young dancers collapse and have to rest," he said.
"Most dancers work 20 years in the theater, she has done 50." (SPP, Reuter)