THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Under Khrushchev, Plisetskaya was named a People’s Artist.  Her talent continued to stun audiences, critics, and bureaucrats alike.  In June 1956, she danced the lead role in the Bolshoi’s production of Laurencia, a ballet choreographed by Vakhtang Chakubiani to music by Alexander Kreyn, first performed in Leningrad in 1939.  The plot concerns the revenge of Spanish villagers on a Lothario-like prince who ravishes a maiden at her wedding.  Khrushchev brought the Yugoslav president, Marshal Tito, to the show, a “high-voltage” display of technical bravura.  Plisetskaya, as Laurencia, was “lithe and slender and as much at home in the air as on the ground,” in the opinion of critic John Martin, who left the Bolshoi Theater stunned.  She tore up the stage, concluding sequences of springing leaps by brushing the back of her head with her foot.  It was a statement, a riposte to the recoiling pitter-patter, the heels-on-the-ground blinchiki of the other dancers.  “Not until my eyes have returned to their sockets and my jaw has resumed its natural position can analytical judgement be attempted,” Martin concluded.

Morrison/Bolshoi