Music: Ballerina Assoluta

As Giselle, the famous role that she danced for the first time 27 years ago, Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova last week at the Metropolitan Opera House showed why, at 49, she is the world's greatest ballerina. Even to an audience already keyed to a series of Bolshoi successes, the evening was a triumph—and Ulanova's performance a genuine masterpiece of the theater.

Ulanova displayed a mastery so complete that technique itself seemed to disappear, letting emotion flood the stage. In the first act Ulanova was a shy girl, trembling with anguish and expectation on the edge...

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