Natalia Makarova in Triumphant Return to Soviet Stage

A 20-minute ovation and bouquet upon bouquet of flowers greeted ballerina Natalia Makarova Wednesday night in her triumphant return to the Soviet Union she left 19 years ago.

‘I have no words,” the 49-year-old dancer said after performing on the Kirov Theater stage for the first time since her defection in 1970. “I am so happy today.”

Since she stepped foot on Soviet soil for the first time on Jan. 22 she has been engulfed in tearful embraces with the family and public she left behind.

Deafening cries of “Welcome” met her as she stepped on stage to dance two pas de deux from the ballet “Onegin.” The first defecting Soviet artist to accept an invitation to perform in her homeland had long dreamed of returning to the Soviet Union to see her family and friends and dance with her former company, but never dreamed it would be possible.

To an adoring standing-room-only audience of 2,200, Makarova said, “I could never imagine that one day I’d come back to dance on this stage.”

Her poignant and energetic dancing with French partner Alexander Sombart and jubilant response to the audience belied any indication of the enormous effort the petite ballerina had made to conquer the tremendous fatigue brought on by the week’s emotional highs, torturous rehearsals and rounds of meetings with the media.

And, if Makarova had any doubts about being welcomed back, she lost them after dancing the first of the two scheduled pas de deux from the ballet “Onegin” when the audience worked itself into a frenzy of clapping and calls of “Natasha,” the affectionate form of Natalia.

By the end of the second pas de deux, some members of the audience were crying. For 20 minutes they clapped and welcomed her back, crying out, “We have been waiting for you, Natasha”

Her final words to her fans: “My love is so great that I cannot embrace the half of you.”

Despite the overwhelming welcome, there was some dissent in the audience, and the Kirov Theatre did not appear to be welcoming her officially.

Though her invitation to dance in the Soviet Union was brought about by the efforts of the Kirov’s chief choreographer and artistic director Oleg Vinogradov, there were no officials from the Kirov among those who gave speeches after her performance. Instead, she was welcomed back to Leningrad by organizers of the Leningrad film festival at which she showed earlier this week “Ballerina,” the BBC documentary she wrote and starred in.

During one of the speeches commending her, a member of the audience yelled out, “Enough of this. You are praising her too much.”

But the film festival organizers seemed to speak for the majority of the audience when they not only praised her performance but expressed political beliefs equating the new freedoms brought by glasnost “with a time of hope,” sentiments that even a year ago would have been dangerous to voice.

Outside the theater, there were no sellers of tickets, only hopeful buyers.

In their efforts to be first to ask theatergoers if they had an extra ticket, ballet aficionados knocked on the windows of taxis driving up to the Kirov before the cars had even stopped. Inside the gilt-painted two-century-old theater, the audience was crammed to the rafters.

Admitted Irina Kolpakova, one of Makarova’s closest friends from the Kirov, the 1,700-seat theater had at least another 500 guests standing. At least 20 people were packed into the orchestra pit with the orchestra.

In the center box balcony seats sat her husband, American businessman Edward Karkar, and her mother, stepfather and stepbrother.

Only the night before, lack of sleep combined with emotional exhaustion and the physical strain of rehearsals on her injured leg and exhausted body had threatened her with “collapse.” But Wednesday night she danced perfectly for her adoring countrymen.

Even before this historic performance, recorded by the BBC for a documentary on the Kirov, the tension and excitement were palpable.

After the performance, one woman who sat silently weeping said, “I am moved to tears because her performance was so perfect, because she is as beautiful as she was, and because she is back.” But the man beside her said, “Though her dancing was perfect, and I respect her work, I cannot respect her. She is a traitor.”

In the front row sat Lena Kudrashova, the former wife of Makarova’s stepbrother. Remembering back to when Makarova defected in London, she spoke of the dichotomy of Soviet opinion. Makarova’s family, she said, “felt support from some people, but there were others who did not like what Natalia had done.”

When Makarova left the Kirov Ballet in 1970 while the company was touring London, she was denounced as a traitor and mention of the renowned ballerina’s name was removed from Soviet reference books and indeed from Soviet conversation. Her photographs were removed from the museum walls at the Kirov’s ballet school, the Vaganova (though they have reappeared this year), and her growing fame, first as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and then as a guest star with London’s Royal Ballet and Festival Ballet were unknown among her countrymen.

But now she is a heroine. Demand for tickets to see her perform was so high that previously scheduled performances by others for today and Friday were suspended at Leningrad’s 4,000-seat October Hall so that Makarova could repeat her Kirov triumph at the larger venue.

And, ironically, though the ballet “Onegin,” choreographed by the late British artist John Cranko, is based on a poem by Leningrad’s most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin, with music adapted from works by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky, it had never been performed here because of its Western orientation.

Originally scheduled to leave the Soviet Union three days after her final Kirov performance, the ballerina has asked to have her visa extended to remain here for an extra few days following her additional October Hall performances.