if an electrical current passed through them." Within a week, he had created a design for Anna Karenina, and over the course of her career he created ten different costumes for just Karenina. In 1967, she performed as Carmen in the Carmen Suite, choreographed specifically for her by Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso. The music was re-scored from Bizet's original by her husband, Rodion Shchedrin, and its themes were re-worked into a "modernist and almost abstract narrative". Dancer Olympia Dowd, who performed alongside her, writes that Plisetskaya's dramatic portrayal of Carmen, her favorite role, made her a legend, and soon became a "landmark" in the Bolshoi's repertoire. Her Carmen, however, at first "rattled the Soviet establishment", which was "shaken with her Latin sensuality". She was aware that her dance style was radical and new, saying that "every gesture, every look, every movement had meaning, was different from all other ballets... The Soviet Union was not ready for this sort of choreography. It was war, they accused me of betraying classical dance." Some critics outside of Russia saw her departure from classical styles as necessary to the Bolshoi's success in the West. New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff observed, "Without her presence, their poverty of movement invention would make them untenable in performance. It is a tragedy of Soviet ballet that a dancer of her singular genius was never extended creatively." A Russian news commentator wrote, she "was never afraid to bring ardor and vehemence onto the stage", contributing to her becoming a "true queen of the Bolshoi". Her life and work was described by the French ballet critic André Philippe Hersin as "genius, audacity and avant-garde". Acting and choreography After Galina Ulanova left the stage in 1960, Maya Plisetskaya was proclaimed the prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1971, her husband Shchedrin wrote a ballet on the same subject, where she would play the leading role. Anna Karenina was also her first attempt at choreography. Other choreographers who created ballets for her include Yury Grigorovich, Roland Petit, Alberto Alonso, and Maurice Béjart with "Isadora". She created The Seagull and Lady with a Lapdog. She starred in the 1961 film, The Humpbacked Horse, and appeared as a straight actress in several films, including the Soviet version of Anna Karenina (1968), which featured music by Shchedrin later reused in his ballet score. Her own ballet of the same name was filmed