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Chapter 3 explores the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1962 tour of the United States, which took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the wake of the crisis, President Kennedy and his family staged numerous public meetings with the Bolshoi dancers to soothe the mounting political tensions. In the critical reception of the Bolshoi, however, a less conciliatory strain emerged. American critics understood the Soviet works through the lens of taste, a framework related to domestic struggles about the positioning of ballet in an aesthetic and class hierarchy. They disparagingly compared the Bolshoi’s new production of Spartacus to Hollywood epic films. These concerns were in turn related to a desire to foster the United States’ status as an emerging ideological empire.

Chapter 1 discusses the Bolshoi Theater’s first tour of the United States in 1959. While the popular response was rapturous, critics were more cautious. They praised the company’s dancers, particularly the Soviet ballerinas, but disparaged the choreography and music. This split was gendered and allowed critics and audiences to sympathize with the performers while condemning the ostensibly more political works themselves. The chapter focuses on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Stone Flower. Because Prokofiev’s music was so well known in the West, tour organizers hoped that his music could mediate between American expectations for Russian ballet and newer Soviet models. However, the Soviet performers failed to convince Western critics that their ballet was sufficiently “modern,” a complaint that would permeate American criticisms of the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her life as a ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet. Leonid Mikhailovich Lavrovsky was appointed twice as artistic director of the Bolshoi. His peak was Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, which Maya danced numerous times. Although the ballet's choreography always seemed monotonous and not very interesting, the dramatic side of the performance was brilliant. Another remarkable work by Lavrovsky was Walpurgisnacht—dances for Charles-François Gounod's opera Faust but The Stone Flower in Moscow was not a success. In 1964, Lavrovsky was replaced by Yuri Grigorovich, the author of the second staging of The Stone Flower. In that capacity Grigorovich transported yet another successful production from Leningrad, Legend of Love. Maya muses in this chapter that the mainstay of life at the Bolshoi Ballet had become trips abroad, which had corrupted the dancers. She also laments the dictatorial regime at the Bolshoi.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya describes her life at the Bolshoi Theater, which had just returned from Kuibyshev (now renamed Samara, its original name) when she was taken into the ballet company. At the time, Marina Semyonova and Olga Lepeshinskaya reigned supreme on the stage while Viktorina Kriger, Lyubov Bank, Anastasia Abramova, and Lyubov Podgoretskaya were in the twilight of their dancing careers. The repertoire consisted of the usual titles known around the world, such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, and The Nutcracker. Maya was chosen as one of the eight nymphs in the Polish act of the opera Ivan Susanin. In order to stay in condition, she began performing at many concerts in Moscow. Maya also offers her impressions about the prima donnas of the Bolshoi Ballet during the period.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her five decades as a ballerina. She marked her fiftieth year in the ballet world by dancing The Madwoman of Chaillot in the French city of Rennes in Brittany on April 2, 1993. It was exactly fifty years previously that she had been accepted into the Bolshoi Ballet troupe. She performed Anna Karenina at the Bolshoi more than a hundred times and danced it in other countries as well. Two of her other performances were for Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, which she danced around sixty times and was staged in the Swedish city of Göteborg, and Lady with the Dog, which she danced on her sixtieth birthday on the Bolshoi stage, along with Carmen Suite.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya recounts her friendship with Robert Kennedy, then Attorney General of the United States, whom she met during her second American tour in 1962. On November 12, the Bolshoi Ballet performed in Washington. After the program, Kennedy requested the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, that he be introduced to Maya. During their conversation, Maya learned that she and Kennedy were born on exactly the same day: November 20, 1925. Maya celebrated her birthday that year in Boston, where she danced Swan Lake. Kennedy was there, along with John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, and little Caroline. Before the start of the ballet, they played the Russian and American anthems. In the morning, the president received the Bolshoi troupe at the White House. On her next birthday, which Maya celebrated at home in Moscow, Robert Kennedy was there again to greet her. In June 1992, Maya was in Washington. She went to Arlington Cemetery and visited the graves of John and Robert Kennedy.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya talks about how she dressed as a ballerina, what she wore, and where and from whom she bought her wardrobe. She reveals that everything she wore was purchased from Klara, a sorceress who lived in Moscow who had other clients at the Bolshoi Ballet. Nikita Khrushchev once told Maya that she was dressed beautifully and asked whether she was rich. She strongly believed that that her ballets Anna Karenina, The Seagull, and Lady with the Dog received recognition due to Pierre Cardin's costumes.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her grief and sorrow after the Soviet authorities did not allow her to leave the country until April 1959. She also talks about Spartacus and the Bolshoi Ballet's first crack at the Aram Khachaturian ballet, in which she played the part of Aegina. After the first performances of Spartacus, which was choreographed by Igor Moiseyev, she began to negotiate with Vakhtang Chabukiani about a possible repertoire.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya explains why she would not seek political asylum in the West even if she had the chance and chose to remain in Russia. She witnessed how Americans enjoyed freedom and lived in abundance, while Russians like Maya did not. Yet she stayed in Russia for fear that the Soviet authorities would have her killed. In 1961, Rudolf Nureyev reportedly asked for political asylum in a Paris airport when he was separated from the Kirov Ballet troupe leaving for London. There was an attempt to force him to fly back to the Soviet Union, which practically ended his ballet life. Maya had her chances to do the same, first during her second American tour in 1962 and second during a trip to England in 1963. But Maya believed that her life was only beginning, having become the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet following Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova's retirement. Two other reasons she did not stay in the West was her husband Rodion Shchedrin, without whom she could not imagine life, and her conscience.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya focuses on her time in Spain, where she worked as head of the National Ballet of Madrid's classical troupe. Prior to the invitation, Maya danced Anna Karenina and Carmen Suite in Spain with the Odessa Theater and then The Seagull, Lady with the Dog, and solo numbers with a splinter group of the Bolshoi Ballet. Her Spanish ballet was successful in Spain and earned her a second invitation. When José Manuel Garrido, deputy minister of culture of Spain, came to Moscow, he asked Maya if she wanted to lead the classical troupe of the National Ballet of Madrid. In Spain, she was attracted by the works of José Granero and danced the opera-ballet Le Villi by Giacomo Puccini.

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her life, both personal and professional. Her entire bustling life has been characterized by premieres, struggles and conflicts, hassles, frustrations, impulses, meetings, suitcases, the daily grind. She has suffered from insomnia all her life, having swallowed kilograms of sleeping pills from Nembutal to Luminal, Tazepam, Roginal, and Valium. She was a creature of extremes and a fanatic soccer fan. Throughout her entire life, she adored and idolized Rodion Shchedrin, her husband. With regards to her ballet, she poured warm water into the heels of her ballet slippers (to make the foot sit more firmly) before every class and every performance. She and her fellow dancers bought all their food at Moscow markets and got some goodies from the buffets of the Bolshoi Ballet.