The Foundation - News - Archive
July-August 2009
Rodion Shchedrin at the Verbier Festival
One of the premières of the Verbier Festival this
year was the new work of Rodion Shchedrin “Artless pages”.
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more
June 27 - August 29, 2009
Rhinegau Music Festival - Composer portrait:
Rodion Shchedrin
With 143 concerts on a total of 38 stages of the Rhinegau
and nearby regions the famous and popular Rhinegau Music Festival goes
in its 22nd round this year. Every year top-class soloists, ensembles
and orchestras meet at this musical event with the only objective –
to offer the audience a highly ambitious, wide-ranging and exciting programme,
which includes with its focus on serious music also jazz and cabaret.
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more
May 2009
World première: “Lithuanian Saga”.
Symphonic fresco for orchestra
In this year, Vilnius the capital of Lithuania is also
Europe’s Capital of Culture 2009. The city celebrates this honoring
with numerous events for art and culture.
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more
April-May 2009
Shchedrin music sounds at the Moscow Easter Festival
On the occasion of the most important feast of the Orthodox
Christendom the Moscow Easter Festival for the eighth time went on a tour
through Russia.
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more
12 April 2009
Concert performance of Rodion Shchedrin's opera
“Dead Souls”
From 1 to 19 April 2009, the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg
organized a festival in memory of the 200th birthday of Nikolay Gogol.
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more
April 2009
Rodion Shchedrin receives „Golden Mask“
Rodion Shchedrin was awarded with the Russian theatre
award “Golden Mask” in the category “Best compositional
work for opera”.
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more
14 March 2009
New production of the ballet "The Little
Humpbacked Horse" in St. Petersburg
It has passed more than half a century since Rodion Shchedrin
- even as a student at the Moscow Conservatory - composed the score for
the ballet "The Little Humpbacked Horse" based on the same fairy
tale by Pyotr Yershov.
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more
February 2009
Academy of Arts appreciates the life's work of
Maya Plisetskaya
"Maya Plisetskaya - a révérence"
- with this exhibition currently ongoing in Berlin, the Academy of Arts
bows before of the artistic life work of one of the most fascinating ballet
dancers of the 20th century.
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more
December 2008
World premiere of "Beethoven's Heiligenstadt
Testament"
On the 18th of December 2008 Munich was the venue of the
first performance of the symphonic fragments "Beethoven's Heiligenstadt
Testament" by Rodion Shchedrin - a commissioned composition for the
Symphonic Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio.
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more
December 2008
"The Enchanted Wanderer" is nominated
for the "Golden Mask 2009"
Already for the 15th time, the Russian theatre award "Golden
Mask" will be handed over in Moscow. This important theatre award
for drama, opera, ballet, operetta, musical and puppet theatre is presented
every year to the best performances of the past theatre season.
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more
October 2008
Rodion
Shchedrin's book "Autobiographical notes" was published in Moscow
2. October 2008
Maya
Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin celebrate their golden wedding
September 2008:
Verbier Festival 2008
23th September, 2008
Première
of the stage performance of the opera “The Enchanted Wanderer”
11th September 2008
Première of "Lyric
scenes" for string quartet of Rodion Shchedrin at the 57th ARD International
Music Competition in Munich
23 June 2008
Work
of the week - Rodion Shchedrin's "Boyarina Morozova"
From 11th to 14th of June 2008
Shchedrin Days
in Armenia
8 May 2008
A concert evening in "Verkatehdas"
30 March 2008
Maya Plisetskaya
in Kyoto (Japan)
4-10 March 2008
Maya Plisetskaya
managed the jury of the 5th Rudolf Nureyev International Ballet Competition
(RNIBC) in Budapest
2 October 2007
Maya Plisetskaya
- Presentation of her new book in Moscow
10 July and 20 September 2007
'The Enchanted
Wanderer' at St. Petersburg and Moscow
16 February 2007
Helsinki/Finland: première
of the ballet "Anna Karenina" of Rodion Shchedrin produced by
Alexey Ratmansky
21 December 2006
Maya Plisetskaya receives the medal 'For service to the
Russian state'
20 December 2006
Maya Plisetskaya has gained a victory in Moscow court
16 November 2006
Rodion Shchedrin Chamber Music
Award to Markus Zahnhausen
9.10.2006
Illegal use of the name of Maya Plisetskaya
2 February 2006
How easy to become a brand name!
13 April 2005
1st Rodion Shchedrin
Chamber Music Award to the composer Minas Borboudakis
21 December 2006
Maya Plisetskaya receives the medal 'For
service to the Russian state'
On 21 December 2006, Vladimir Putin, the President of the
Russian Federation, presented Maya Plisetskaya with the medal 'For service
to the Russian state', first degree. The ceremony took place in the Kremlin's
Catherine Hall as part of the traditional New Year's State Awards Ceremony
to award, in the words of the President, 'all those who improve and strengthen
Russia'. Putin thanked the ballerina for her contribution to the development
of the art of choreography in Russia and all over the world. He called
her 'prima in all', referring not only to her personal merits in the ballet
scene but also to the state's - including his own - reaction to these
merits.
Maya Plisetskaya is the only person who has ever received the medal 'For
service to the Russian state', third, second and first degrees, and the
first woman who has ever been awarded the First-Degree Medal. By the way,
the list of men who received the First-Degree Medal is not very long too.
Among them are the former President of Russia Boris Yeltsin, the Mayor
of Moscow Yuri Lushkov, the French President Jacques Chirac, as well as
the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. In the field of creative
arts, there has only been one person up to now who received the First-Degree
Medal, namely the founder of the Folk Dance Ensemble Igor Moiseyev who
was awarded this medal on the occasion of his 100th birthday.
20 December 2006
I signed nothing!
The creme with the likeness and signature of Maya Plisetskya on the packaging
must not be sold and has to be taken from the market, as appears from
the judgment of Moscow's Meshchansky Municipal Court of 20 December 2006.
This judgment marks the first victory of Maya Plisetskaya and her lawyer
Alexander Dobrovinsky in their dispute with the director of the Imperial
Russian Ballet, Gediminas Taranda, who considers himself to be right in
the legal sense to use her name.
The creme was put on the market by the company 'Healthy Biotechnologies'
on the basis of a contract concluded between this company and Mr Taranda.
But according to the records of the non-commercial Imperial Russian Ballet
Foundation directed by him, the latter too is a 'non-commercial' person:
He appears as artistic director and therefore is not entitled to conclude
such kind of contracts.
Maya Plisetskaya denies to have assigned the right to use her name to
Gediminas Taranda, both as a legal person acting on behalf of the Foundation
and as a natural person.
The court has fully conceded that point to her. What matters now is to
stop the use of her name as an advertisement for the Russian Imperial
Ballet.
9.10.2006
Illegal use of the name of Maya Plisetskaya
The name of Maya Plisetskaya has been used illegally again
and again by the Imperial Russian Ballet under the direction of Gediminas
Taranda.
A few years ago, Maya Plisetskaya withdrew her permission previously granted
to have her name used by the aforementioned ballet group. Nevertheless,
the Imperial Russian Ballet still uses her name to promote their performances
- as happened recently in Cyprus where the performance posters even announced
Maya Plisetskaya's appearance in a dance role. Such deliberately false
announcements are a deception of the audience. Another performance with
her alleged appearance shall take place in Lisbon in October. The Foundation
has now taken legal action to put an end to the further misuse of Maya
Plisetskaya's name.
Newspaper 'Kultura', issue
No. 5, 2 February 2006
How easy to become a brand name!
Dear Editor,
For fourteen months, the story of the medicinal cremes bearing my name
has made its rounds through the media and has appeared on TV. I have remained
silent all the time. But now, the moment has come for me to speak out,
particularly because all information the people got to hear and read have
been completely one-sided.
In 2002, the director of the Imperial Russian Ballet, G. Taranda, got my permission, by devious and deceitful means, to use my name free of charge 'for the development of Russian ballet art'. It was devious and deceitful because he came to my home without prior announcement, when I was alone, in the company of a quiet lady who had not introduced herself to me and whom I remember well because she bashfully averted her gaze from me. I was asked to sign something. Sign what? For how long? 'For two years, Maya Mikhailovna, we have to help the ballet', said Taranda, lulling my suspicions with a bright smile. Of course, I made a mistake - I did not even have my glasses on - and hastily signed the papers without reading them. But then, I believed every word of Taranda. In all that hurry, I had not understood that the lady brought by Taranda into my house, R. R. Urazova, was a notary of the city of Moscow, as it turned out later.
The notary R. R. Urazova did not give me the paper I had signed. She handed it over to Taranda.
After having put his plan into effect, Taranda gradually stopped having any contact with me. He did not inform me about creative projects and planned guest performances of the company nor about planned performances of the Imperial Russian Ballet even though I was still the Ballet's honorary president. He never, not once, sent me New Year's or birthday wishes or congratulations on 8 March. I was not invited to the premieres of the Ballet. I only heard unpleasant things about his new productions - the taste was poor, the choreography depressingly bad. Many good soloists left Taranda's company under scandalous circumstances. He was said to pay low wages and misbehave himself. The talented dancer Olga Pavlova (she is now prima ballerina at a renowned American company) came to me to complain: 'I had told Taranda that people must not be treated in such an ungodly way, whereto he answered "So what? There will always be hungry ones…"'. According to what I was told, the turnover of employees in the company was disastrous. One or two months, and the people left Taranda. Soloists of other ballet groups were invited for guest performances only 'once'.
Then the surprises started. In Finland, I unexpectedly met a group of nice young girls in lemon yellow shirts bearing the print 'Maya Plisetskaya School'. 'We study at your school', they told me. Then, an old friend informed me that his granddaughter would go to the 'Maya Plisetskaya School' in Moscow. 'It's just quite expensive', he said to me almost reproachfully. Other friends gave me loads of prints of my advertising photographs from the Internet which invite to attend the 'Maya Plisetskaya School'…
And finally, I received a call in my house in Lithuania
in the summer of 2004. A woman calling from Japan told me that she had
had a lot of trouble to get my Lithuanian telephone number.
- 'Your agent Taranda did not want to give it to me for anything in the
world. But I wanted to talk to you personally.'
- 'Who said that Taranda is my official agent?' I asked her.
- 'Taranda showed me a stamped paper.'
- 'And what matter do you wish to discuss with me?'
- 'My husband is a wealthy man and loves the ballet. This is why we would
like to open a ballet school in Tokyo under your name. But Taranda demands
300,000 dollars in cash for that. That's too expensive for us. But if
we can come to an agreement with you directly, it may perhaps be less
expensive…'
When I returned to Moscow in autumn, I demanded an explanation from Taranda concerning the paper he had shown to the lady in Tokyo.
Taranda began to squirm and tried to worm his way out of it. But I insisted on it. After many tricks, long excuses and sweet smiles, he finally showed that paper to me and Shchedrin. It was an unlimited power of attorney according to which everything concerning me and my name was in the possession of Taranda. That's the betrayal!
The very same day I revoked this unscrupulous and suicidal document. How fortunate that the lady from Japan had reached me in Lituania!
At that time, the medicinal cremes against swellings of the legs, bruises and contusions, an antivaricose gel for the legs, feet… began to appear under my name (a 'commercial product line' as was printed on the packaging).
With my picture (which, by the way, was made by the American photographer Richard Avedon whose rights are protected worldwide) and also the drawings of our artist V. Shakhmejster whose rights should be protected as well. With my detailed recommendations which are confirmed by my facsimile signature 'Maya Plisetskaya'. Nobody thought it necessary to ask for my permission or at least inform me. After all, this was about medicinal cremes. I have never seen nor tested them. So how can I recommend them, particularly since they cure serious illnesses? What if these cremes cause irreparable harm to suffering people? Then I will be responsible for it. This seems immoral and cynical to me.
My angry objection which was immediately sent by registered letter to the address indicated on the packaging of the creme bearing my photo by Avedon was followed by the official answer that the manufacturing company 'Healthy Biotechnologies' had never existed at the indicated address. What a nice surprise!
Later, when the news concerning 'my cremes' were spread on TV, the company 'Healthy Biotechnologies' suddenly contacted me, offering me money in order to prevent the looming conflict. However, I rejected their offer and filed a suit, hoping that there was justice in Russia. In addition, everybody around me told me that the case was absolutely clear and could not be lost at all. But no! The whole matter took a year. In the end, the judge of the Meshchansk court of the city of Moscow, Ms Vereshchak, dismissed my suit twice.
But why does Taranda not produce a medicinal creme for all injuries and illnesses under the name of 'Gediminas Taranda' himself? Why does he need my name?
Today, the cremes still sell well everywhere, even abroad. The monies received, I am sure, are quite considerable. Not only the décor and costumes for a 'Swan Lake' production could easily be paid with them… But Taranda carries on, despite my objection; he does not use his name but mine. The audience buys tickets (which is probably profitable for every theatre director) when they see my photo and my name on the posters announcing guest performances. And then, my telephone starts to ring: 'Why didn't you come? You deceived us. We were waiting for you. We had prepared receptions and discussions.' Only recently, I have received detailed information from Germany, Greece, Israel, Spain, Finland, Bulgaria and many Russian cities, such as from Sochi a few days ago.
I insist that my name be removed from the programmes of all ballet companies, especially of Taranda's company. I ask everybody who reads this letter to expose this appropriation of another person's name and fraud. For our judiciary which, apparently, serves only theoretically to expose and punish fraudsters and villains does not take action against lies and lawlessness.
Yours sincerely
Maya PLISETSKAYA
24 January 2006