Word: plisetskayas
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SHCHEDRIN: THE CARMEN BALLET (Melo-diya/Angel). Rodion Shchedrin, 35, the current Establishment favorite of Russia's younger generation of composers, wrote this ballet for his beautiful wife Maya Plisetskaya, the Bolshoi Ballet's prima ballerina. Hearing the Toreador Song and the Changing of the Guard freely arranged for strings and 47 percussion instruments is pleasant for the first time, but no more. Shchedrin mistakes brashness for cleverness so often that familiarity with his work breeds boredom...
...Bolshoi Ballet detailed a 39-star detachment from its massive, 250-strong company to occupy the Metropolitan Opera as soon as the Royal Ballet left. Leading the company was Maya Plisetskaya, a ballerina assoluta of the broad, open Moscow style, which makes the sheer physical act of moving beautifully through space look like a natural way of life. The Russians offered virtuoso, bravo-catching nights of pinpoint turns, rock-steady balances and astronautic high leaps. But there was little to praise in the undernourished bits, snippets and shards of 19th century choreography that provided the vehicles for the Bolshoi...
...most of the composers (Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev) are familiar, the excerpts are less so. Among the most intriguing is from Not Love Alone, an opera about the love life on a collective farm by Rodion Shchedrin. The youngest composer represented on the album (and husband of Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya), Shchedrin finds room for originality within conventional Soviet Realism-which means late, late, late Romanticism. However superficial, his melodies are refreshingly singable. Mezzo-Soprano Arkhipova renders all with intelligence and virtuosity...
...HUROK PRESENTS (CBS, 9:30-11 p.m.). A galaxy of stars twinkling in tribute to Impresario Sol Hurok. Representing only a few of the hundreds he has sponsored during the past 55 years are Marian Anderson, Van Cliburn, Isaac Stern, Andres Segovia, the Bolshoi Ballet with Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and Antonio and the Ballets de Madrid...
...matter. Plisetskaya carried the evening with sheer fire and ardor, at one point wowed the audience by leaping and nearly kicking the back of her head with her foot. Now 40, the long-stemmed Plisetskaya is at the peak of her powers, and she is backed by an impressive stable of soloists, among them some fast-rising younger dancers who have blossomed since the troupe last appeared in the U.S. in 1962. At the end of their three-week Met engagement, the Bolshoi will set out to bring down other houses on a 13-city tour...