MOSCOW – Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, whose work included famed ballets such as “Anna Karenina” and “Carmen Suite”, has died at 92, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre said Friday, calling his loss an “enormous tragedy”. Shchedrin, husband of late ballet legend Maya Plisetskaya, was “one of the greatest contemporary geniuses”, whose “operas, ballets and symphonies are played on the world’s greatest stages”, the theatre said in a statement. “Rodion Shchedrin was a unique phenomenon and marked an entire era in world musical culture.” Born December 16, 1932 in Moscow, Shchedrin gained fame in the West with “Carmen Suite” (1967), in which Plisetskaya starred at the Bolshoi, cementing the pair’s status as a Soviet-era cultural power couple. Plisetskaya, whose mesmerising performances won her the title of “prima ballerina assoluta” at the Bolshoi, died in 2015 aged 89. Drawing on Russian literature and fairy tales, Shchedrin also composed the ballets “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, “The Seagull” and the opera “Lolita”. He composed more than 80 works overall, including symphonies and concertos, leaving behind “a priceless artistic heritage… that echoes in audience’s hearts”, the Bolshoi said.
