Maya Plisetskaya, world-known ballerina, celebrates her 80th birthday

Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre prepared an extensive program to celebrate the brilliant career of the 'star of the stars' in world ballet

Moscow prepares to celebrate the 80th anniversary of renowned ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. In addition to the five-day festival, which Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre organizes to celebrate the ballet dancer's birthday, Moscow authorities will organize a series of photo shows in Plisetskaya's honour.

Maya Plisetskaya finished the Bolshoi Theater's school and became a member of its troupe in 1943. The ballerina quickly managed to take the leading position in the theater owing to her natural artistry and talent in ballet dancing. Members of all official delegations in the Soviet Union were attending Maya Plisetskaya's “Swan Lake” ballet performances for 30 years.

Having conquered the world ballet elite, Maya Plisetskaya managed to accomplish a considerable breakthrough in the development of theatrical arts in the USSR and Russia. However, Maya Plisetskaya has earned an immense influence both on and off stage, which basically became the peculiar feature of her artistic phenomenon. Plisetskaya became the role model for several generations of people. A lot of world-known female and male dancers decided to devote their lives to the art of ballet because of Maya Plisetskaya's influence. Everyone admires this woman's elegance, vigor and determination. Plisetskaya possesses an amazing quality: she can create the artistic environment just with the fact of her appearance.

The program of the festival, which will take place on Bolshoi Theatre's New Stage on November 16-20, includes “Swan Lake,” “Don Quixote,” and “Carmen Suite” – the performances, which made Maya Plisetskaya a global star of ballet. This time, however, the role of Carmen will be played by Bolshoi's prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova, one of the biggest stars of the new generation of Russian ballet.

Maya Plisetskaya will grace the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre on the last day of the festival. As it was mentioned above, the program of celebrations will include several photo shows devoted to the “star of the stars,” as Maya Plisetskaya's admirers say. The central of the photo shows, simply titled as “Maya Plisetskaya” will be held in the heart of Moscow. Hundreds of photographers from various countries of the world took pictures of Maya Plisetskaya during decades of her career in ballet. The exposition will also reveal numerous pictures of ballerina's worshippers with Pablo Picasso, Pierre Cardin, Robert Kennedy, Coco Chanel among them.

”Everything that I feel here, at home, in Moscow, can not be put in words. I am absolutely excited about people's attitude to me, I do not even know how I could express my feelings of gratitude and happiness for all that,” Maya Plisetskaya said.