Bolshoi Performers Suspended For Striking Over Internal Dispute
In an escalating drama at Russia’s Bolshoi Theater, the director Saturday suspended 15 performers of the Bolshoi Ballet company who refused to perform Friday night in a strike that infuriated the public.
The dancers struck over the resignation on Thursday of the ballet company’s longtime artistic director, Yuri Grigorovich, 68, forcing the cancellation of Friday evening’s performance of “Romeo and Juliet,” which Grigorovich had choreographed to the music of Tchaikovsky.
Grigorovich, a famously autocratic artistic director and choreographer for three decades, lost out to Vladimir Kokonin, the director of the Bolshoi, in a titanic battle of cultures that had gone all the way to the Kremlin.
Kokonin favors an end to lifetime employment and the introduction of a contract system for artists, as well as the naming of a new board of directors for the theater. Grigorovich, who said he could not work with Kokonin, quit on Thursday.
It was the first time in memory that a ballet was canceled by a dancers’ strike. In September, dancers delayed a performance for 20 minutes to protest the internal feuding.
Friday night, the curtain opened 10 minutes late to reveal a collection of teachers, stage workers and dancers, some in costume and some in street clothes, standing about awkwardly on the stage.
Sergei Gromov, a well-known dancer, in costume for the performance, read a statement of protest against the 10 months of confusion at the theater and the confirmations of Kokonin as general director and Vladimir Vasiliyev, a former dancer, as artistic director.
“We have a bitter response,” Gromov said, telling the audience to hold their tickets for a later date.
Gromov was among those suspended Saturday, along with several well-known dancers, Natalya Arkhipova, Natalya Bessmertnova, Yuri Vetrov and conductor Algis Zhyuraitis. Television news said they had been dismissed, but the Bolshoi used a Russian word that implied something less than outright dismissal.
In a telephone interview Saturday night, Bessmertnova said the dancers had been suspended until a court could judge the legality of their protest. If the strike is illegal, she said, the dancers could be dismissed. She said they decided not to perform only 10 minutes before the curtain was due to rise at 7 p.m.
The strike was not universally popular, and many dancers hung about Friday night, hoping the performance would go on. The audience reacted angrily, some whistling and stamping their feet. A ticket to the Bolshoi is still a prize in Russia, and foreigners can pay up to $100 for a seat in the orchestra.
The theater said Friday night it could not immediately refund the tickets. Viktor Tikhonov, the deputy director, said that the theater was considering suing the dancers responsible for the strike or deducting the costs from their salaries.