La Sylphide Du Bolchoï

That is a great question, even though the story (answer) is very sad.

As one might imagine, Natalia's sudden professional "breakthrough" and success during her final years at the academy did not pass unnoticed. Needless to say, people are generally a jealous kind, especially in the arts, so one might argue that that was the starting point for all the evil - really, that's the only word I can think of in this context - Natalia had to face and battle. Don't forget that Natalia made her debut in Giselle only two years into her pro career. On top of that, it was none other than the Leonid Lavrovsky who noticed her!

But realistically speaking, most of the backstabbing and envy, the most fierce and relentless attacks that Natalia had to face started when / after she married Grigorovich. At first, female dancers were jealous of all the roles she was getting, reducing all the talent and work put into them into the banal "oh, that's because she is sleeping with Grigorovich". Which was not the case. In a ~ fairly ~ recent interview (and by that I mean not a Soviet-era interview), Yuri Nikolayevich stated:

I personally feel (note: I don't know that for a fact, that's just my belief) like the most hateful, bilious "campaign" against Natalia started at Maya Plisetskaya's behest. Evidence supporting that can, I believe, be found in Azari Plisetsky's book titled "Life in ballet. Family chronicles of the Plisetskys and Messerers", for instance:

I find the very wording rather dismissive of Natalia's gift; as if her artistic ability had nothing to do with Grigorovich favoring her, the key to her success rather being Grigorovich's feelings for her. Or here's another quote:

Also, don't forget that time Plisetskaya stormed into Bessmertnova's dressing room and told her Grigorovich would dump her in a year, shortly after the couple wed.

Any beef the Bolshoi dancers had with Grigorovich, any grudge they bore against him - they would take it all out on Natalia.

In his book, Plisetsky claims that all Grigorovich's ballets that came after The Stone Flower and The Legend of Love were getting "weaker and weaker", and their reception couldn't even compare to the furore the two aforementioned ballets caused. Which is - let's be honest - not the truth.

Now imagine what happened to Natalia towards the end of the 80s - beginning of the 90s, when talentless proteges of the rich and powerful started to flood the theatre. According to Tsiskaridze, Bessmertnova was even blatantly insulted by such mediocre folk.

Long story short, the main reasons behind all the hate that befell Natalia were: