Dance: Wing-Footed Feat

Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House is destined for the wrecker's ball in May—that is, if it lasts that long. Last week the visiting Bolshoi Ballet practically tore down the house all by itself. Most of the acclaim was lavished on the Bolshoi's wing-footed Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. On opening night she danced the dual role of Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, and on the next night performed in the U.S. première of Petipa's Don Quixote—altogether a feat that is roughly comparable to Sandy Koufax pitching both ends of a doubleheader.

Since its conception by Marius Petipa in 1869, Don Quixote has been revised by three Russian choreographers. Even Impresario Sol Hurok got into the act: at his request, several mime sequences were telescoped to enliven the pace. The result is a bravura hodgepodge of Spanish and gypsy dances, pas de deux, a smattering of light-footed cupids and dryads and, for some obscure reason, a jig resembling a French apache dance.

No matter. Plisetskaya carried the evening with sheer fire and ardor, at one point wowed the audience by leaping and nearly kicking the back of her head with her foot. Now 40, the long-stemmed Plisetskaya is at the peak of her powers, and she is backed by an impressive stable of soloists, among them some fast-rising younger dancers who have blossomed since the troupe last appeared in the U.S. in 1962. At the end of their three-week Met engagement, the Bolshoi will set out to bring down other houses on a 13-city tour of the U.S.