In telling her own story, from a childhood of bitter poverty to stardom as the most celebrated diva in the Soviet Union, the author bears witness to Stalin's Russia, the squalor in the cities, the purges, the Nazi blockade, the famine and Stalin himself As her operatic career soared, she moved amongst the greatest names in the country and abroad her friendship with Benjamin Britten led to him writing a part for her In 1974 party control drove her and her husband from their homeland