July 27, 1936
Born in Riga Maris Liepa. Dancer, choreographer, film actor. The best Crassus of the Soviet ballet.
We need to work not for the size of the stage, but for the size of the space
His father was a singer but lost his voice and worked as a stage manager at the Riga Opera House. Māris never dreamed of the stage—his mother wanted him to become a doctor. But one day, his parents were advised to enroll the frail boy in ballet school to improve his health.
His studies were a success. The teenager was recognized as a future character dancer. At 14, he attracted attention at the All-Union Competition of Choreographic Schools in Moscow—students from Riga tied for first place with the Muscovites.
When he was 17, he was invited to the Moscow Choreographic School. He didn't get a scholarship, so his parents sold their seaside dacha so they could attend. He never missed a single class.
It seemed my career was predetermined—to be a character dancer. But no one knew that in my diary, in the most secret corner under the cover, was written: "I will dance the prince in Swan Lake!"
He graduated with honors. At his graduation, he danced the entire Nutcracker.
Among the male dancers, Maris Liepa stands out, a dancer with excellent looks and excellent technique, equally strong in both solo and duet dances.
(from the review)
The Bolshoi Theatre didn't hire me back then—it was assumed that national talent should be retained locally. I returned to Riga. Soon after, I went back to Moscow for the Latvian Art Decade. I really liked it. Maya Plisetskaya — wrote a good review of him in Izvestia. He was invited to the Days of Soviet Culture in Hungary, where he danced the role of Siegfried, which he had dreamed of.
That same year, 1956, he and Plisetskaya married (the ballerina never publicly mentioned this marriage). Unlike their long-standing creative relationship, their family relationship ended in divorce after three months. They had four marriages in total.
At the same time, the 20-year-old dancer was accepted to the Stanislavsky Musical Theatre. Ballet fans began going "to Liepa."
Ballet is all about dancing! It's not about competing in jumps, costume displays, or facial expressions! Ballet is about making music visible.
In 1960, he was invited to join the Bolshoi troupe – he bribed the choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky by asking first about the repertoire, and not about the salary and apartment.
He danced the entire repertoire of that time—Giselle, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet. He restored the ballet Mikhail Fokin "Vision of the Rose" - talking to the first performers, studying reviews and photographs.
Perfect beauty is always tragically fleeting. Even during the lifetime of its first performers, "The Spectre of the Rose" became a beautiful legend... about Karsavina's magical charms, about Nijinsky's genius, who embodied the flower's fragrance in dance and astonished everyone with his silent, soaring leaps.
At the premiere, Fokin's son, moved by the experience, presented Liepa with a photograph of his father.
In 1964, the Bolshoi changed its choreographer. Having appreciated the "soaring spirit" in Ferkhad's leap in "The Legend of Love," Yuri Grigorovich He cast Liepa as Spartacus. But after watching him demonstrate Crassus's "text" to a colleague, he changed his mind. In 1968, Liepa made his first appearance on stage in the Roman general's armor. Critics called him "the best Crassus of Soviet ballet." Over the course of 14 years, he competed with all the Bolshoi Theatre's Spartacuses—no one could dance Crassus like Liepa.
Dance is Crassus's triumph. His leaps are like the sharp strokes of a blade that cut the air, whistling and playing in the sun.
Soon, his relationship with Grigorovich soured—Liepa was no longer offered roles. In 1979, he criticized the Bolshoi's management methods in Pravda. For the next two years, he was not allowed to appear on stage even once.
On March 28, 1982, he danced Crassus for the last time—it was a sell-out, with tickets resold at exorbitant prices. After his triumph, the dancer was dismissed from the theater as "professionally unfit."
A lack of prospects is probably the most terrible thing in life. What's the point of waiting, living, being?
In his final years, he worked as a choreographer in Sofia. He also appeared in films. In 1989, he planned to open his own ballet theater in Moscow. On March 4, he began recruiting dancers. On March 26, he died of a heart attack. It was rumored that a security guard had previously refused him entry to the Bolshoi Theater.
He was 52.
