Broken Pointe
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 20 of 100.
Zarechny Theatre, Moscow, opening night of Giselle, 9:40 pm. At 7:52 pm, in the middle of the first act variation, prima ballerina Vera Sokolova rose onto pointe and fell. Right ankle fractured, taken to hospital. The performance was stopped.
The shank of her right shoe snapped mid-turn. Opening night shoes don't break like that. Vera prepared them the day before and left them closed in the box in her dressing room.
From 6:15 pm to 7 pm Vera warmed up on stage, and her dressing room stood open and empty. Three people had motive and access. One of them went down there without being called.
The theatre's rehearsal room, wooden barres, tall mirrors and the piano under a dust cloth.
Suspects
Zlata OrlovaUnderstudy ballerina, 22
Arkady BelovCompany choreographer, 51
Galina MorozovaWardrobe seamstress, 58
The real case
The attack on the director of the Bolshoi Ballet
Moscow, Russia, January 2013
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
On the night of 17 January 2013, Sergei Filin, artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, was attacked with acid outside his home in Moscow by a man who called him by name. He lost much of his sight and underwent more than twenty surgeries.
The investigation found that the attack had been ordered from inside the company: a soloist of the Bolshoi itself was convicted of organizing it, driven by resentment over casting decisions, including those involving a ballerina close to him. The case exposed to the world the internal rivalries of one of the most famous companies on the planet.
The game borrows the setting and the motive: a Moscow ballet, an attack from within against its leading figure and a casting decision as the trigger. The method, characters and outcome are fiction.
Sources
Case glossary
Words from this case you might not know.
- pointe
- In ballet, dancing on the tips of the toes, in stiffened shoes called pointe shoes.
- Giselle
- A romantic ballet first staged in Paris in 1841, about a peasant girl who dies of heartbreak; a classic leading role.
- prima ballerina
- The leading female dancer of a ballet company.
- barre
- A horizontal handrail fixed to the wall of a dance studio, used for support during exercises.