Word: bolshoi
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...ANGELES--Two members of the Bolshoi Ballet, a husband and wife team, are reportedly seeking political asylum in the United States. A spokesman for the State Department said yesterday, "We are aware of the situation," but released no further details...
Whether Ballerina Ludmila Vlasova of the Bolshoi Ballet really wanted to go home or to defect with her husband, Dancer Alexander Godunov, may never be known in full. When Godunov, one of the most brilliant of Soviet ballet stars, made his rush to freedom, he did not-or could not-take her with him. Upholding U.S. law prohibiting forced repatriation, the State Department insisted on interviewing Vlasova to see if she wanted to join her husband. Belatedly, the State Department moved to keep her in the country by preventing her Aeroflot jetliner from taking off until, in the words...
...drama began early last week when Godunov, 30, bolted from his Manhattan hotel, just as the Soviet Union's premier ballet company, the Bolshoi, was about to complete a hugely successful four-week run. Godunov, the Bolshoi's most charismatic star, coolly walked out of his room as if he were heading for a stroll, evading the KGB officer stationed in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel. He rushed to the New York office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, where he requested, and was granted, political asylum...
News of the defection-the first in the Bolshoi's history-sent waves of shock and apprehension through the 125-member Moscow troupe, which included Godunov's wife, Ludmila Vlasova, a soloist with the company. At that point some ballet insiders reported that the couple were estranged and that Vlasova, 37, was unwilling to defect with her husband. Still, angry Soviet officials felt it necessary to hold Vlasova incommunicado at the hotel. Because the Bolshoi has long been groomed to be the showcase of Soviet culture, Godunov's flight was evidently viewed as even more...
Also under construction is an ambitious cultural center that will contain a 10,000-volume library, a concert hall for 1,200, two 250-seat movie theaters and even a discothèque. Already scheduled are performances by the Bolshoi and Kirov ballet companies and by the Beryozhka folk dancers. One bit of bad news for devotees of the high life: there will be no beer halls like the popular one in Montreal...