It depicts Pavlova's passion for art and her collaboration with the reformers of ballet including Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky and Sergei Diaghilev.

It is shown how classical master dancer/ballet teacher Marius Petipa helps Anna on to the path to glory and her rise in the imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Martin Scorsese, a great admirer of Michael Powell's films, originally convinced Robert De Niro to play the American impresario Sol Hurok[4] [5] [6] and Jack Nicholson to portray Pavlova's husband and manager, Victor Dandré.

[7][8] The casting was rejected by the Russian Ministry of Culture, as The Deer Hunter in which De Niro acted was conceived as anti-Communist, and Nicholson had made disparaging remarks about the Soviet Union in interviews.

[1] The television version, which premiered in 1986, consists of five parts, each 55 minutes apiece: "Rossi Street", "Undying Swan", "Tulips and Loneliness", "Dreams of Russia" and "Touching the Sunset".