Bolshoi Acid Attack: Russian Police Detain Suspect For Assault Of Sergei Filin

Artistic director of the Bolshoi ballet Sergei Filin spoke with the media after leaving a hospital in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)

MOSCOW, March 5 (Reuters) - A suspect was detained on Tuesday over an acid attack that nearly blinded the artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet and put a spotlight on infighting at one of the world's great theatres.

Sergei Filin, 42, was badly burned when a masked assailant threw sulphuric acid in his face outside his Moscow apartment as he returned home late on Jan. 17. He is now in Germany having treatment that is expected to save his sight.

A brief statement from Moscow police said the person detained was "one of the suspects" in the case and was being questioned. Until now, police had detained no suspects and questioned only witnesses over an attack that shocked Russia.

LifeNews, a Russian website with close ties to the police, and Interfax news agency quoted a police source as saying the suspect was a man who had been seized in a police raid in Moscow's suburbs and was not an employee of the Bolshoi Theatre.

His home was being searched and he was suspected of carrying out the attack itself, LifeNews said.

"This is good news for us," Katerina Novikova, the Bolshoi Theatre's spokeswoman, said of the suspect's detention.

"And if they have managed to find the person who carried it out (the attack), there is hope that they can find the person who ordered it," she said.

Filin was left writhing in agony in the snow for about 20 minutes after the attack. As artistic director of the theatre's ballet company, he had the power to make or break careers in the fiercely competitive world of ballet.

He said before heading to Germany last month that he believed he knew who was behind the attack and that it might be connected to his work. He said he would not reveal a name until police made an announcement on the case.

HISTORY OF INTRIGUE

The theatre has been no stranger to intrigue since it was built under Empress Catherine the Great in 1776 and the ballet troupe has gone through five artistic directors since 1995.

In 2003, Bolshoi bosses were heavily criticised for trying to fire ballerina Anastasia Volochkova for being too heavy. In 2011, deputy ballet director Gennady Yanin - then seen as a candidate for the artistic director post - quit after pornographic images of him appeared on the Internet.

The theatre, near Moscow's Red Square, reopened to great fanfare in 2011 after a six-year, $700-million renovation that restored its tsarist opulence but was criticised for going far over budget.

It has regularly been under fire over its artistic programme since then.

Leading Russian cultural figures wrote to President Vladimir Putin last November calling for the dismissal of the Bolshoi's general manager, Anatoly Iksanov. Among his critics are veteran dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who challenged him for his job.

The Bolshoi dismissed the criticism, saying it failed to take into account the troupe's latest performances.

A prominent current affairs television show, Post Scriptum, blamed the management last month for failing to prevent scandals. (Editing by Pravin Char)

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Sergei Filin Attacked: Man Throws Acid On Bolshoi's Artistic Director

Sergei Filin, the artistic director at the legendary Bolshoi Theater, was attacked Thursday night by a man who splashed acid onto his face in central Moscow. (AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Vladimir Rodionov, Presidential Press Service, File)

MOSCOW (AP) — A masked assailant threw acid at the artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Theater ballet troupe, an attack that Bolshoi representatives said may cause him to lose his eyesight and appeared to be linked to power struggles at the famed ballet company.

Sergei Filin, a 42-year-old former ballet star, was approached late Thursday night by a man who threw the acid at his face as he got out of his car outside his home in central Moscow, police spokesman Arkady Bashirov said. Theater officials said the man was masked.

The theater's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, said he believed the attack was linked to Filin's work.

"He is a man of principle and never compromised," Iksanov said on Channel One state television. "If he believed that this or that dancer was not ready or was unable to perform this or that part, he would turn them down."

Filin knew that someone was threatening him or trying to undermine his position at the theater, Iksanov said. He said Filin's car tires had been slashed earlier this week and he was targeted in early January by hackers who posted his professional correspondence online.

"He said 'I have a feeling that I am on the front lines,'" Iksanov quoted Filin as telling him Thursday before the attack.

Iksanov later backed away from the suggestion that the attack was linked to Filin's casting decisions.

"The goal (of the attack) was to create a split and disagreement in the theater's management," Iksanov told journalists gathered at the theater. Channel One deleted his statement from its reports later in the day.

Bolshoi principal dancer Svetlana Zakharova teared up when speaking about Filin.

"We've just realized that the job of a Bolshoi Theater director is very dangerous one," she said.

Filin, who danced for the Bolshoi from 1989 until 2007, was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi's ballet company in March 2011. Before returning to the Bolshoi, he served as artistic director at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater, Moscow's second ballet company.

Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova, who visited Filin in the hospital Thursday night, told The Associated Press that his condition is stable but he could lose his sight. She also appeared to confirm that a disagreement over roles may have played a part in the attack on him.

"We never imagined that a war for roles — not for real estate or for oil — could reach this level of crime," Novikova said on Channel One.

Several stars at the Bolshoi including Nikolai Tsiskaridze, one of its most celebrated dancers, have complained about what they call Filin's unfair treatment of dancers at the theater.

Alexei Ratmansky, who was Bolshoi ballet's artistic director from 2004 until 2008, described an atmosphere of intrigue at the theater.

"What happened with Sergei Filin was not accidental," Ratmansky, now an artist-in-residence at the American Ballet Theater, posted on his Facebook page. "The Bolshoi has many ills. It's a disgusting cesspool, of those developing friendships with the artists, the speculators and scalpers, the half-crazy fans, ready to bite the throats of the rivals of their favorites, the cynical hackers, the lies in the press and the scandalous interviews of staff.

"This is all one snowball caused by the lack of any ethics at the theater."

Filin is the sixth artistic director at the Bolshoi since Yuri Grigorovich, who led the dance company for three decades, resigned in 1995 after losing a protracted dispute with theater management. Successive artistic directors, however, were unable to overcome resistance from dancers and teachers still loyal to Grigorovich as they tried to inject new life into the company.

Filin, a Bolshoi veteran who had brought modern ballets to Stanislavsky, was seen as capable of bridging that gap.

Dancers Zakharova and Yan Godovsky played down talk of tension at the company, saying there were disagreements but not "on this scale."

Filin will be flown to Brussels later Friday to be treated at a military hospital that specializes in burns, Bolshoi spokeswoman Novikova said.

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