Acid attacker’s partner was ex-girlfriend of Bolshoi director Sergei Filin?

Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko, who has admitted organising the attack on director Sergei Filin in January, has said that one of his principal motives was that his partner Anzhelina Vorontsova was being passed over for the top roles. According to an inside source at the Bolshoi, we've heard that Vorontsova had been romantically involved with Felin in the past.

The Times said,

Ms Vorontsova reportedly fell out with Mr Filin when he was artistic director of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko theatre. She angered him by joining the Bolshoi where she became the favoured protégée of Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the flamboyant Georgian dancer with a huge following who has publicly campaigned against the management. Mr Filin then joined her at the Bolshoi where he had been a star dancer, becoming artistic director in 2011.

However, Dmitrichenko insists that he didn't know anything about the involvement of acid:

When I heard what happened to Sergei, I was just in shock. I could not believe that the man who proposed beating him up went ahead and did this thing with acid.

The alleged accomplice Yury Zarutsky denies this,

He's making me into a scapegoat.

Moscow police have said that they believe Dmitrichenko paid 50,000 roubles ($1,600) to the accomplices.

Photo: Pavel Dmitrichenko in court in Moscow yesterday

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.