Jailed Bolshoi dancer’s girlfriend defends him on Russian tv: He’s a wonderful man

Anzhelina Vorontsova, girlfriend of jailed Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko, has gone on Russian television and spoken for the first time in public of the acid attack on Bolshoi director Sergei Filin. The attack was supposedly instigated by Dmitrichenko, angry because Filin was not giving Vorontsova the roles he felt she deserved.

Yet it was Filin who gave Vorontsova  a career boost when he helped her transfer to Moscow:

Filin certainly played a role in my life but at some point he obviously stopped seeing me as a rising star. For the last two years he would not let me dance the parts which I most wanted, not in a single ballet.

Yet of the jailed Pavel Dmitrichenko she said,

Pavel was the company’s absolute leader and always fought for our rights, constantly telling the management that the Bolshoi artists are the best. Many artists are afraid to speak out because we all depend on the management. Not Pavel. He’s a wonderful man.

She described him as “real man who always stuck up for his colleagues”, said The Sunday Times.

Dmitrichenko’s law­yers will con­test the forensic res­ults that show that the acid attack on Bolshoi Bal­let chief Sergei Filin caused griev­ous bod­ily harm, which carries a max­imum sen­tence of twelve years.

Vorontsova has visited Dmitrichenko in prison,

I try to help him not to give up, and it’s vital I keep dancing because that was always very important to him.

Commenting in the New York Times, ex-company member Ivan Vasiliev said,

It’s not the ballet world, it’s criminal and something really terrible. Personally, I love the Bolshoi theater, it’s our alpha, how I started and part of my soul.

Gramilano Editor

Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.

Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.

He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.