Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press
Nikolai Tsiskaridze during a rehearsal in the Bolshoi Theater in February.
MOSCOW — The Bolshoi Ballet has announced that it is ending a contract with its most prominent male dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, whose simmering complaints about the theater’s leadership boiled over into a full-fledged power struggle earlier this year.
At 39, Mr. Tsiskaridze is approaching the end of his dancing career, but he still has a fanatical following among balletomanes as well as influential advocates in Moscow’s elite.
He has long expressed interest in moving on to an administrative position, and in January, after a brutal assault by a masked man on the company’s artistic director, argued publicly that the atmosphere at the Bolshoi had deteriorated so badly that its top leadership should be sacked.
Mr. Tsiskaridze’s dismissal came unexpectedly, with a terse statement on Saturday, and seems likely to stir up a new round of tabloid-ready rancor. Although the dancer has so far been uncharacteristically restrained in his reaction, an unnamed fan told the newspaper Izvestia that Mr. Tsiskaridze’s defenders plan to picket the Bolshoi this week.
Katerina Novikova, the Bolshoi’s spokeswoman, said that Mr. Tsiskaridze’s contract ends on June 30 and will not be extended.
“He had a one-year, short-term contract, and this contract is over,” Ms. Novikova said. “The Bolshoi’s leadership decided not to renew it. They do not have to give reasons for this.”
Mr. Tsiskaridze has long been preparing for a legal battle with Bolshoi executives over his contract — by attending law school classes, among other things — but on Sunday he had little to say, declining to be interviewed by telephone.
“I am not upset,” he wrote in a text message. “All this was thought up to make a mockery of me. I knew it would happen. Their opera, ‘Prince Igor,’ was a failure. And they needed to distract attention with another scandal.” The opera had its premiere at the house on Saturday.
Mr. Tsiskaridze’s dismissal comes months after the attack on the artistic director, Sergei Filin, who was returning home late at night on Jan. 17 when a masked man tossed sulfuric acid into his eyes. Mr. Tsiskaridze was one of the first people questioned, but he was never identified as a suspect, and in March police arrested another dancer in his circle, Pavel Dmitrichenko, in connection with the attack.
Mr. Filin has undergone a series of operations on his eyes and is expected to regain at least some of his eyesight and return to the company.
The theater’s general director, Anatoly Iksanov, has repeatedly said that he did not suspect Mr. Tsiskaridze in the attack but nevertheless accused the dancer of undermining the theater’s leadership in public and private ways. Indeed, Mr. Tsiskaridze — a shrewd and sharp-tongued native of Georgia — seemed to delight in deriding Mr. Iksanov before television cameras, at one point saying that the theater’s $ 760 million renovation left it looking like a Turkish resort hotel.
However, in an interview in February, Mr. Iksanov said he had no legal basis for dismissing Mr. Tsiskaridze and hoped that he would resign voluntarily.
“Our labor legislation is very humane,” he said. “He has been on pension for more than a year. I cannot send him to retirement, because according to Russian legislation, it’s a lifetime contract. He can stay at the theater until he is 100.” Ms. Novikova declined on Sunday to comment on what had changed since then.
A few people emerged to argue Mr. Tsiskaridze’s case on Sunday. Among them was the ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, who fell out with the Bolshoi’s leadership in 2003 over the assertion that she was too heavy to lift. Ms. Volochkova wrote on Twitter that, when her own troubles with the administration flared, she at least had her mother to protect her.
“Kolya Tsiskaridze has had no parents since he was a child,” she wrote. “He has no one to protect him. He has giving his whole life to the theater. And he has no one to hug him.”
Bolshoi Ends Contract With Star Dancer Tsiskaridze
