© Angela Taylor BolshoiTalk Forum recent Bolshoi reviews Lunkina in reviews Ian Palmer reviews I am most grateful to Art Stream (UK) and its Director, Liliya George, for making this interview possible.

I never thought that I would find myself cramped in the back of a clapped-out Skoda with the legendary Prima Ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre, Ekaterina Maximova. But a peculiar Muscovite tradition allows you to hail down any old car from the street and commandeer it as taxi and it was thus that we found ourselves travelling to one of the city’s most well-regarded restaurants. It serves some of the best Italian food in Russia and Maximova, like many Russian diners, pores over the menu before engaging in lengthy conversation with the waiter about how the food is to be prepared and served. She is, it seems, something of a food connoisseur: at her Dacha on the outskirts of Moscow she spends the days tending to her kitchen garden and collecting wild mushrooms from the forests. From these ingredients she prepares meals for her family, which comprises her husband, another former Bolshoi star, Vladimir Vasiliev, and her ninety-year old mother. Does she, I wonder, have a speciality dish? For a moment she thinks, before responding, ‘I grow courgettes, and I like to stuff them with some minced meat, perhaps beef, which I have seasoned with spices. I then bake them in the oven and they are delicious.’

It seems strange to think that this tiny lady, with whom I am sharing recipes, is one of the Russian ballet’s greatest stars, but her sparkling eyes and the charming, captivating smile which bewitched her audience in years gone by reveal the Prima Ballerina that she is. Next year she celebrates her seventieth birthday and undoubtedly the ballet will honour this event. It is hoped to present a series of galas around the world, and in October 2008, the Bolshoi Theatre will mark the fiftieth anniversary of her stage debut with a week of special performances. From 1958 onwards, she reigned supreme as one of the world’s most beloved ballerinas and in a decades-long partnership with Vasiliev, she proposed an ideal of classicism to the West that defined its perception of Russian, and specifically Bolshoi, ballet.

Her artistic home was always in the classical repertoire – as Giselle, Kitri, Masha in The Nutcracker – but she was also supreme in the Soviet ballets created by Yuri Grigorovich - as the first Phrygia in his Spartacus, as Katerina in The Stone Flower (a performance happily available on a 1979 recording) – and in those ballets which Vasiliev created upon her in the 1980s, most notably his Chekov-based ballet, Anyuta. Reviewing the recent VAI re-release of this work, Charlotte Kasner wrote, ‘Ekaterina Maximova possesses real and lasting star quality in spades that goes well beyond the mastery of technique.’ Words such as these echo down the volumes of criticism written about her artistry over the years: for many she is the yardstick by which they measure current performances.

Though she retired from the stage in the mid-1990s, this did not diminish her desire to continue working for the art form which she loved. Honoured by the President as a People’s Artist of Russia – the highest artistic rank in the country – she continued to serve the theatre by assisting her husband in re-staging the classics around the world, acting on the juries of the leading international ballet competitions and, for the last three years, heading the Maximova Foundation, a charity which she co-founded with Konstantin Matveev, the former Kremlin Ballet star and Maximova’s last partner.

It was an idea which came, she tells me, from her heart, ‘not because I am a ballerina, or an opera singer, but because I am a normal personality – I just want to be a kind person.’ The aim of the charity is to provide help, whether financial or moral, to those former performers struggling through times of difficulty. ‘I have many friends in difficult situations’, she tells me. ‘Once they had good jobs, good money, but time goes very quickly. I had to ask myself: if I don’t help them, who else will?’ Thus, with the help of friends, she tries to assist where she can, to finance those who are in need and by doing so extend the creative lives of some of Russia’s greatest talents. ‘Russia is not in a good situation right now and friends who have money help out. If someone needs money, we try to give money, or if they just need to talk, we talk. If someone needs food, or has a problem like that, I help where I can.’

Ekaterina Maximova, during stage rehearsals of Onegin
at English National Ballet
© Angela Taylor

Maximova tirelessly raises money through every means she can, though she acknowledges she cannot do it all herself: ‘One person alone cannot do everything – it has to be a group.’ So she appeals to everyone, both Russian and non-Russian, ‘if you have money, if you love the ballet, you must help out. This is what people must do.’

Her sense of charity, her desire always to help those in need, seems to inform her entire life. Certainly it is present in the other aspect of her career, that of coaching the younger generation of ‘star’ ballerinas. She is a principal coach at Andrei Petrov’s Kremlin Ballet (where, opposite Konstantin Matveev, she made her valedictory appearance in Vasiliev’s Cinderella) and continues to assist at her alma mater, the Bolshoi Theatre, as a pedagogue. Does she have any favourite students? ‘They are all my favourites!’, is her typically canny reply. But I press for further details. She tells me she is excited about Alexandra Timofeyeva, at the Kremlin Ballet – ‘she has beautiful lines and she has a big premiere in Corsaire coming up’ - and Anna Nikulina, at the Bolshoi – ‘she is dancing Swan Lake fantastically, and Nutcracker. In fact Nikulina and Timofeyeva are very similar in terms of body line.’

And of course there is Svetlana Lunkina, widely regarded as one of the greatest of the current crop of ballerinas, her fluid lines and breathtaking lyricism piercing the hearts of her admirers. Lunkina and Maximova have been working together since 1998 when, as a young dancer in the corps de ballet, Vasiliev plucked her out and gave her opening performance in the title role of his Givenchy-designed staging of Giselle.

I saw Lunkina perform Giselle during a Bolshoi tour to Nottingham in 2006 and I tell Maximova that I thought her performance superb. ‘I agree!’ she tells me with an almost cheeky grin. ‘It was her first main role, and it was also the very first role that I taught her. At first she was like a young girl who hadn’t had an experience of life, she hadn’t experienced a great ballet part. There was a moment when she had to crave Albrecht and she just couldn’t do it. I explained to her, “Look, you must have a heart, you must have a soul” and she did not understand. I asked her, “do you know what your soul is?” and she replied, “no.”! It is because she was so young. But after these ten years she has changed a lot, both technically and she has experienced love. She has married. She has had a child. Everything has changed.’

In the past it was a rarity for ballerinas to break their careers mid-way to have children, almost to the point whereby it was frowned upon. Over the years it has become more common. Is this something that she herself encourages? ‘Yes. A long time ago ballerinas thought only of their careers and did not have children, but now I think it helps. A woman who is a mother has more emotions, she learns to love; she learns to care. I encourage it absolutely.’

Is there a worry sometimes that her students just try to copy her own well-documented performances? ‘I never request that my students look like me, and I never did that with my teacher, I never ask for another Maximova, in fact I encourage the differences in my pupils. I take something specific, a tiny detail, and ask them to explore different ways of interpreting it. This is how I try to teach my pupils. It is such a heavy job and you must be patient. Your attitude must be so open, because for each different student you have a different character, a different personality. You must always differentiate between this student and that student and you could never teach them in the same way. It is difficult because not only must you be a teacher, but you must imagine yourself as the student as well. You have to think in a similar way.’

What about conflict? Does she have arguments with her students? ‘Everybody is different. You must not simply be a professional teacher, you also have to be a human being, a friend. If you don’t understand one another then you must talk about it. If after that you still don’t understand, then I think you should be separated. This is normal. I am very happy when my students want to try something different. I say, “yes, you can try it, let’s see if it works” and then we see how it goes. If they do this, I am happy, but it must always come from the heart. I am always happy for them to do their own thing, provided they can tell me why. It is good to try things in different ways, because it helps them to grow up. It is helpful to the artistic process, but they must be able to tell me why.’

Is this different from teacher/pupil relationships of the past? ‘No, it has always been the same. Where I think it is now changed is that before it was a normal tradition to go with friends and see other performances to look for the differences. So one night we would see Lavrovsky in a role and the next night Vasiliev. Everybody went and afterwards you would get together and talk about how the performances were different. Now, I do not think it is like this. I do not think that every student goes and watches different performances. I think they just study alone and talk about it with their teachers.’

Over the years, stylistic differences between the generations have emerged, especially in the current craze for ballerinas to raise their legs up into six o’clock positions. As a teacher, how does Maximova cope with these differences? ‘Every age is doing something different. Once it was classical, now it is modern. There has been an aesthetic and technical change. In the past dancers didn’t need all this, they danced from their hearts and from their souls, like an actress. Now it is different and you must jump and spin; many things have changed. It is like gymnastics. Time always brings something new, in an aesthetic sense, but in the past it was not good style and your coach told you so. Now it is different; it is a sensation.’

Maximova’s coach was Galina Ulanova, renowned, along with Mathilde Kschessinska and Dame Margot Fonteyn as one of the world’s rare assoluta ballerinas and one of the early giants of Soviet ballet. Maximova danced in The Fountain of Bakchisarai’s Act 2 Bell Dance as part of Ulanova’s farewell performance and it was under her early guidance that Maximova debuted as Giselle in 1960, a role which was later to become a signature work for her. ‘For me, Ulanova was the best artist I have known. I studied with both Ulanova and Struchkova, but for me Ulanova was the goddess. You simply couldn’t touch her. With her, every day was a special day because every day was different, especially in her performances. She taught many, many things and every day she was different. Today, you had to be a little girl; tomorrow you had to be a woman. Everyday you would learn something new. It was a relationship sent from heaven. It is one of the greatest relationships of my life.’

And what of Ulanova as a dancer? ‘She was unique. From being a little girl I watched every one of her performances and I would think, “OK, what is she doing now?” I would try to concentrate on her legs, or on her technique, but you just couldn’t. You simply watched her. She was truly unique!’

It was through looking at another great ballerina, Ekaterina Geltzer, that the child Maximova became obsessed with ballet. Though Geltzer, one of Petipa’s last pupils and one of the first of Diaghilev’s dancers, had retired as a ballerina before Maximova was born, her picture hung in the Maximova apartment. ‘I would stare at her and think, “My goodness she is so beautiful, she is fantastic. This is what a ballerina is; I want like to be like that.” I asked my mother all the time to take me to ballet class, I would pray to God. Eventually my mother decided, OK, I will do this for her. She thought that I would never be a great ballerina, but she didn’t want her daughter to turn round one day and say, “It’s your mistake. Maybe I could have been a great ballerina.” So I went, and I passed the exam. Now, of course, my mother is very, very pleased with me!’

Once at the Moscow Choreographic Institute her mentor became the Imperial ballerina Elizaveta Gerdt, the daughter of Pavel Gerdt, Petipa’s finest Danseur Noble and creator of the roles of Prince Desire in The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake’s Siegfried. Elizaveta had been Nijinsky’s partner at school and following the 1917 Revolution, one of the few ballerinas who chose to remain in Russia. She retired in 1928 and devoted the remainder of her life to teaching. ‘She did not think about what you did technically, she thought more about what you did with your hands, how you looked – your eyes, your face. With her you had to be an artist and you learnt to do everything from your heart and from your soul. She herself had fantastic hands: everybody adored her hands. She was such a highly cultured person; so very passionate, yet so gentle and she was such a beautiful woman. She used to tell us stories about Karsavina, Pavlova, about Legat and Nijinsky and all the dancers from the previous century and all her students would sit and listen to her. Oh it was another world! She had such an extraordinary memory.’

Svetlana Lunkina in Giselle. Lunkina is coached by Maximova.
© Mikhail Logvinov

Aged nine, Maximova made her debut on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. ‘It was in one of the operas and I played a little girl who had to come on and find a penny. I was so scared, because I thought that everyone was watching me. My mother was sitting in the Balcony and afterwards as we were walking home she told me that I had looked too serious. So I said to her, “Mummy, it is what I do. I am an Actress.” Imagine – I was only nine years old!’

Her mother, with whom she still lives, played (and continues to play) an important role in her career. ‘Even when I was not at home, we would talk on the telephone and she had to know everything. She was a fantastic manager. She had complete control over everything. She would attend all the premieres and she controlled the press.’ The Moscow balletomanes confirm that this was true. In conversation with a regular Bolshoi attendee the following night, I am told that if ever a fan sent flowers to Maximova, a hand-written note of thanks from her mother would appear in the letter-box the next morning, without fail. (Now, it seems, such courtesy is an increasing rarity among Bolshoi dancers.)

Another great influence on her artistic and private life is of course her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev. Now, in retirement, he spends much of his time painting in Italy. ‘Oh yes, he started painting when he was a young boy, but the problem was he never had the time to do it. Now he has the time to be free and he loves it so much. He paints and paints and paints to relax.’ In the West, I suggest to her, she is known for her partnership with Vasiliev. What was the experience of dancing with a regular partner over many years? ‘Actually I had lots of partners, not just Vasiliev. I danced with Nicolai Fadeyechev, Maris Liepa, Mikhail Lavrovsky and my final partner was Konstantin Matveev. Fadeyechev was a very good partner – with him I was not scared to do anything.’ What is the secret of a good partner? ‘Good hands. You have to feel very comfortable in his hands. You have to have very good contact. I think it is a very good experience to change partners, because in doing so you have to change a little of yourself as well.’

What about roles, I ask. Did she have a favourite? ‘Oh everybody asks me this question! But I can never answer. There was not one I can say was my favourite, because in each role I gave a little piece of my heart.’ Maximova’s repertory was, by Russian standards, wide and varied, especially so during the 1980’s when she and Vasiliev were estranged from the Bolshoi Theatre proper. (Maximova retains absolute discretion concerning this period and will not answer questions about it, just, I am told, as she will not answer questions about the Bolshoi’s current situation.) She worked with numerous choreographers including Roland Petit (and is especially delighted that he chose her student, Lunkina, to dance Esmeralda in the Bolshoi’s recent staging of Le Notre Dame de Paris) and in 1978 created the role of Juliet opposite Jorge Donn in Maurice Bejart’s Romeo and Juliet. ‘The first time I met Bejart was when Vasiliev was asked to dance his Petroushka. But it was very difficult to get a Visa to leave the country, so Vasiliev said, “If you don’t give me a Visa, then I won’t dance and I will not perform anymore”, and we got Visas. So I was sitting in the dress rehearsal of Petroushka when Bejart saw me and said, “Look, I want you to dance my Juliet”, and I thought it was a good idea. But again, I had problems getting a Visa because everyone was worried that I might defect and it only arrived ten days before the premiere. All we had was ten days to learn a big premiere performance. After that we became very close friends.’

What was he like to work with? ‘We talked, he showed, he danced. He was a very unique person because he had such a kind personality. He would do everything for you. We were not just colleagues; we were true best friends. Our friendship was a good memory for both of us. I remember once Vasiliev and I took Ulanova to a party at his apartment. He never owned a house, he would always take an apartment and nothing was ever finished, absolutely nothing. We went into his kitchen and there were just three chairs for four people, so he sat on the floor. He absolutely adored Ulanova. He had this ring, which had belonged to Anna Pavlova, engraved with a swan and studded with diamonds. He took it and presented it to Ulanova. Then, after about five or ten years, Ulanova gave the ring to Vasiliev and he still wears it. This was the thing. Bejart never thought about himself – never about where he slept or what he ate – he was always thinking of other people. He never had great clothes, or great shoes. For him the theatre and his friends were the most important things.’

This might certainly be true of Maximova also, who in her care – for her students, for her friends – reveals that this great ballerina is also a great human being. In her charitable work and in her teaching she continues to serve the dance to which she has devoted her entire life and as she approaches her seventieth birthday she is still continuing to give.