Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian... Simon Morrison

An enthralling, definitive new history of the Bolshoi Ballet, where visionary performances onstage compete with political machinations backstage.

On a freezing night in January 2013, a hooded assailant hurled acid in the face of the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet. The crime, organized by a lead soloist, dragged one of Russia’s most illustrious institutions into scandal. The Bolshoi Theater had been a crown jewel during the reign of the tsars and an emblem of Soviet power throughout the twentieth century. Under Putin in the twenty-first century, it has been called on to prese