Upheaval: Day 10

Word Count: 60,099

Summary of Events:

Leon got beaten awake by his mother again and broke the broom she used in frustration, only to have her use its jagged end against him, forcing him to leave without breakfast. After buying breakfast at a convenience store Leon went to school, where he was detained by the principal and told the substitute teacher was in the hospital with chemical burns and he was responsible for $10,000 in damages. Leon got expelled despite his insistence that it wasn't his fault and so made his way to the local library to see what he could find for information on how to read the Russian language, as well as on his grandmother; information on the latter was somewhat scant, but not altogether nonexistent . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

In 1971 she racked up five more ballets: Petrushka in January, Cinderella in March, Sleeping Beauty in May, La Sylphide in July, and the Firebird in September before reprising her role as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker once again.

Petrushka was a ballet of significance as it turned out to be the last ballet the Bolshoi's primary dancer Lavrinti Soshnikov ever danced, doing an iconic job of dancing the beleaguered puppet that led the 1971 staging of Petrushka to be one of the most renowned in history, having two short-lived bright stars of Russian ballet in some of their finest performances.

Unfortunately Soshnikov was catastrophically injured at the end of the showing and was unable to dance again. He committed suicide at the age of twenty three, leaving a young wife and an infant son behind to mourn his loss along with all of the Russian ballet world.

His death came during the run of Cinderella, where Kozlova was dancing alongside Konstantin Svechnikov, and even though Kozlova was saddened by Soshnikov's death, the show continued on and no further mention of Soshnikov was made, although Petrushka has never been staged by the Bolshoi since then.

Kozlova's penultimate achievement was her role as the Firebird, which was lauded as even greater than Petrushka by some, but time has favoured Petrushka as the greater ballet — even though few photos or films of it exist — in Kozlova's repertoire.

January of 1972 played host to what is considered one of the greatest stagings of Swan Lake in the ballet's more-than-hundred-year history. Kozlova played the double role of Odette/Odile alongside Svechnikov as Prince Siegfried.

What Petrushka was to the career of Soshnikov, Swan Lake was to the career of Kozlova: the ultimate achievement of their careers, and, also, their final performances.

Kozlova brought the opposing swans to life with incredible beauty and grace unlike had been seen in years, but the most amazing thing was the infamous thirty two fouettés.

Many a ballerina would quit after twenty, or would show obvious signs of wavering, or would travel across the stage as they executed the fouettés, or strove to. Kozlova was straight, unwavering, hardly travelled more than an inch or two in any direction, and did not stop until all thirty two fouettés were accomplished.

Recognising that they were witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime event, the assembled crowd gave Kozlova an immediate standing ovation. She was lauded as a heroine by many, and people looked eagerly forward to her next performance, only to get the shock of their lives.

Immediately after the last performance of Swan Lake had finished Kozlova announced that she was marrying a Soviet ambassador and retiring from ballet in accordance with his wishes that she give him children while she was young.

Pronunciations:

Sylphide: sillfeed

Kozlova: causelowvah

Svechnikov: svetchnihkohv

Fouettés: fwehtay