Nancy Reagan maid returned to work at the White House. In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to visit Washington, D.C. since Nikita Khrushchev made the trip in 1959 at the height of the Cold War. Nancy was in charge of planning and hosting the important and highly anticipated state dinner, with the goal to impress both the Soviet leader and especially his wife Raisa Gorbacheva. After the meal, she recruited pianist Van Cliburn to play a rendition of "Moscow Nights" for the Soviet delegation, to which Mikhail and Raisa broke out into song. Secretary of State George P. Shultz
Rosa Raisa 1933 is the last year that Raisa performed a reasonably full schedule. Since January 1931 when she left the stage to prepare for the arrival of her daughter, having had six unsuccessful pregnancies, many things happened: the demise of the Chicago Opera, the world-wide deteriorating economic situation and a general contraction of operatic activity in the United States. But Raisa sang a run of "Tosca" in Genoa, created Manuela in Zandonai's one-act opera "Una Partita" at La Scala, sang Alice Ford in "Falstaff" with Rimini at the first Florence May Festival (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), "Tosca" in the presence of Queen