Showing posts with label Maris Liepa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maris Liepa. Show all posts
Monday, 8 April 2013
Friday, 16 September 2011
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Maris Liepa
VISITING RUSSIANS
Prominent Russians: Maris Liepa
July 27, 1936 - March 26, 1989
Liepa was the principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and a man of principle.
Born on 27 July in Riga, Latvia Maris was a sickly child. His mother wanted him to become a doctor. But with the intention of improving his health the child was taken to the Latvian Opera and Ballet school. His father, Edward Liepa, was an opera singer but had lost his voice at an early age and became a stage engineer at the Latvian National Opera. Edard Liepa had many theatrical friends who suggested dancing would help strengthen his son’s health.
Funnily enough Maris Liepa’s stage debut was in an opera. He sang in a boys’ choir in “Carmen” at the Riga Opera and Ballet Theater where his father used to perform. By the age of 13 Maris had already danced parts in three children’s ballets and several adult ballets including “Don Quixote” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
Along with ballet Maris practiced sports, gymnastics and swimming. He was Latvia’s repeated champion in free style swimming, which left him with a radiculitis.
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| Taken Dancewear Centre early 1980's I am on the right alongside Maris with my granddaughter Breony in front with Bolshoi ballerinas on the left. |
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| I am on the right with granddaughter Breony, 2 Bolshoi ballerinas on the left, then Maris, daughter-in-;aw Robyn and my son Jeff. |
Prominent Russians: Maris Liepa
July 27, 1936 - March 26, 1989
Liepa was the principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and a man of principle.
Born on 27 July in Riga, Latvia Maris was a sickly child. His mother wanted him to become a doctor. But with the intention of improving his health the child was taken to the Latvian Opera and Ballet school. His father, Edward Liepa, was an opera singer but had lost his voice at an early age and became a stage engineer at the Latvian National Opera. Edard Liepa had many theatrical friends who suggested dancing would help strengthen his son’s health.
Funnily enough Maris Liepa’s stage debut was in an opera. He sang in a boys’ choir in “Carmen” at the Riga Opera and Ballet Theater where his father used to perform. By the age of 13 Maris had already danced parts in three children’s ballets and several adult ballets including “Don Quixote” and “Romeo and Juliet.”
Along with ballet Maris practiced sports, gymnastics and swimming. He was Latvia’s repeated champion in free style swimming, which left him with a radiculitis.
Read more
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Image from www.cultnews.ru Image from www.cultnews.ru |
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Maris Liepa
Maris Liepa, 52, Dies in Moscow; Bolshoi Star Was Popular in West
By ANNA KISSELGOFFPublished: March 28, 1989
Maris Liepa, a star of the Bolshoi Ballet whose virile dramatic portrayals made him especially popular in the West, died Saturday in Moscow. He was 52 years old.
Mr. Liepa had a heart attack, said his son, Andris, who is performing with American Ballet Theater in California.
A bravura technician in the Bolshoi from 1960 to 1981, Mr. Liepa was the embodiment of the masculine heroic style that was traditional to the Moscow company. Nonetheless, audiences at home and throughout the world were stunned by the overwhelming expressive power that Mr. Liepa poured into his indisputably great performance as Crassus, the Roman tyrant in ''Spartacus.''
The Bolshoi star created the part in Yuri Grigorovich's version of the ballet to the Khachaturian score in 1968. In 1970, he received the Lenin Prize, the Soviet Government's highest award, for his portrayal.
As Crassus, Mr. Liepa brought something new to Soviet ballet. The forcefulness of his dancing and the intelligence of his characterization made a negative character equal to the so-called positive hero that Socialist Realism had bequeathed to contemporary Soviet ballet. His Crassus was cruel and sensual, momentarily crushed into cowardice. Cast opposite Vladimir Vasiliev's Spartacus, Mr. Liepa held his own and made this a duel of two great dancers.
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Maris Liepa
These photos taken late 1980's in our Dancewear Centre in the Hunter Village I am on the right, two Russian Ballerinas (left), Maris Liepa, my daughter-in-law Robyn, my son Jeff, their tiny daughter Breony..the visiting company was performing at the Civic Theatre....most of the Company visited my shop on two occasions, Maris as interpreter for the dancers...very thrilling for us all.