Schedule for Ballet Gala in Commemoration of Raisa Struchkova (Best Dances from different Ballets performed by World and Bolshoi Ballet Stars) 2022


Orchestra: Bolshoi Theatre Symphony Orchestra

Raisa Stepanovna Struchkova (5 October 1925 – 2 May 2005) was a Russian dancer and People's Artist of the USSR.

Struchkova was born on 5 October 1925 in Moscow to a factory worker. She studied at the Moscow Ballet School, her teacher was Elizaveta Gerdt. In 1944, she graduated from Bolshoi Ballet school and became its member the same year. Two years later she appeared in a play called La fille mal gardee where she played role of Lise which became her first major role. Even though that previous ballet dancers, as of 1945, did Cinderella, she perfected it in 1947 by being Cinderella herself. Unlike other famous female ballet dancers of that time like Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya she didn't became an international star, but the Cinderella role made her famous nationwide. In 1949 she starred as Dawn in Coppelia and the same year played a role of Parasha in the Bronze Horseman. Throughout her career she danced as a leading role in such plays as Giselle, Don Quixote, Swan Lake, the Sleeping Beauty, the Nutcracker, and many, many others. Later on, she became a ballet teacher in 1962 at the State Theatrical Institute of the Arts and in 1978 became ballet coach at Bolshoi. She was a founder of Ballet magazine and worked there as an editor from 1981 to 1995.

She died in Moscow on 2 May 2005 at the age of 79.

This Ballet Gala performance is a special surprise by Bolshoi theatre to Ballet lovers.  Programme includes: choreographic miniatures, scenes and pas de deux from the classical ballets. The detailed programme is kept in secret and announced just before the event.