The BBC News organization has reported that Bolshoi director Sergei Filin has been severely injured in an acid attack.
Apparently over recent months, he has been subject to a cyber attack, intimidation, threats and now on returning to his home in Moscow on Thursday evening, he has had acid thrown in his face. As you can see from this report, police have found the jar that was used to contain the acid, in this clip you can see them examining it in the snow and moving it into an evidence box. Hopefully they will be able to recover finger prints from this.
It is suspected that Mr Filin has been caught in the middle of infighting and competition between different groups of Bolshoi dancers, he is said to have an uncompromising style, and would not allow dancers to perform roles until they were ready, this has perhaps been the source of considerable tension, and possibly played a role in this recent attack.
Sergei Filin, born in nineteen seventy, began a twenty year career starting in nineteen eighty eight, and ended his professional performing career in two thousand and eight.
The problems occurring within the Bolshoi have been the subject of wide media attention in Russia, and seem to be based not on financial reward but on competition between the dancers to have "jewel" roles.
This sought of cultural in-fighting has been going on for decades and has often degenerated into dancers even tampering with each other's ballet shoes, such as putting crushed glass inside, or causing disturbances during high points of a performance.
At the Bolshoi's web site http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/, the directors have expressed their support for Mr. Filin:
19.01.2013
"The members of the Bolshoi Theatre Council of Trustees express their solidarity with the family of Sergei Filin and the Theatre Company in connection with the horrific attack on the Artistic Director of Ballet.
In the two years he has occupied this post, Sergei Filin has managed to seriously renew the Ballet Company and to conduct an artistic policy enabling the Bolshoi Theatre to remain the best ballet company in the world, and preserve its world cultural heritage at the same time as constantly developing.
The attack on Sergei Filin will not go unpunished. Members of the Bolshoi Theatre Council of Trustees hope that the crime will be solved and the guilty parties named. The Council is ready to give all possible support to ensure that Sergei receives the best possible treatment.
We hope Sergei will soon be back at work. We will be waiting for him".
The Bolshoi which began in the seventeen hundreds as a private theatre of a Russian prince has attained a world wide reputation for the finest ballet in the world. A Russian friend once perceived that the arts gained much prominence during the soviet era because Stalin took great measures to destroy the hold of religion over the Russian people, and replaced it with two things, culture, and Stalin himself.
He made himself a religion. The soviets also realized the political importance of world class performers, not only in ballet, but also in athletics as we know is evidenced by their achievements in the Olympics, especially during the official period of the cold war.
It is interesting to note that the charter of the Bolshoi began in seventeen seventy six, with Catherine the second charging Prince Pyotr Urusov, the "privilege" of "maintaining" theatre performances of all kinds, including masquerades, balls and other forms of entertainment, for a ten year period.
The great theatre began with a royal patron, the Russian rulers saw that they needed to create a court and culture that could compete with the best that the more established courts of western Europe could offer.
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