But the ballet’s director, Kirill Serebrennikov, was conspicuously absent, having spent the past few months under house arrest. In 2013, Pavel Dmitrichenko, a dancer, ordered an acid attack on Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the ballet troupe, and was jailed. But even by the Bolshoi’s standards, the Moscow beau monde giving a standing ovation to a play with its director under arrest was a surreal sight. He is the artistic director of Gogol Centre, a Moscow theatre that often stages politically edgy productions, and has been an outspoken critic of artistic censorship in the Russian theatre scene. Why do it in the Bolshoi Theatre?” he said.

Source: The Guardian December 10, 2017 14:13 UTC