gramilano

Bolshoi Theatre’s Nikolai Tsis­karidze, fear­ing dis­missal from the com­pany, refuses to com­mu­nic­ate with the press without per­mis­sion from the Bolshoi’s spokes­man Kater­ina Novikova.

Tsis­karidze was asked to com­ment on the fact that the Bolshoi Theatre will not renew the con­tract with the act­ing head of the trade union Ruslan Pronin, but Tsis­karidze refused:

If Novikova, our spokes­man, will allow me to talk with you, I’ll gladly do it. But without her per­mis­sion, I have no right to speak.

When asked if it this veto only con­cerns talk­ing about the Bolshoi Theatre, he said that it applied to all his com­ments to the media, say­ing that it might be sacked from the com­pany if he didn’t toe the line. Tsis­karidze gave a damning tele­vi­sion inter­view a month ago which must have infuri­ated many of the Bolshoi’s admin­is­trat­ors when he said that he was ready and will­ing to take over the top job.

Tsis­karidze has already been rep­rim­anded sev­eral times by the Bolshoi Theatre for talk­ing too freely to the media, and fin­ished in court earlier this month.

The rela­tion­ship between the man­age­ment of the theatre and the dan­cer worsened after the attack on the artistic dir­ector of the bal­let com­pany, Sergei Filin.

Share