On 15 December, during a nationwide TV broadcast entitled 'Meet Mr Putin', the Russian prime minister addressed Valery Gergiev, general director of the Mariinsky theatre in St Petersburg. 'You should stop enticing away the Bolshoi's dancers,' Putin said with an icy smile. Knowing that the Mariinsky had done no such thing, Gergiev sidestepped. Putin's words, he said, should be directed at 'a colleague who is present here'. Everyone knew to whom Gergiev was referring. A month earlier, Vladimir Kekhman, general director of the Mikhailovsky theatre, had persuaded the Bolshoi Ballet's brightest stars, Ivan Vasiliev and Natalia Osipova, to join his company in St Petersburg.
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The ballet world was stunned. The Mikhailovsky is half the size of the Bolshoi and has always languished in the shadow of St Petersburg's older and more illustrious Mariinsky Ballet. For world-ranked dancers such as Osipova and Vasiliev to transfer to such a company was unheard of and was a huge coup for the Mikhailovsky.
The Bolshoi's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, railing against Kekhman in the press, described the dancers' departure as an 'attack', but Kekhman blandly deflected Iksanov's words. He had offered the dancers a 'market price', he said, and thrown in an apartment in Moscow, where 25-year-old Osipova and 22-year-old Vasiliev, an off-stage couple, would continue to live. The dancers, he added, had made the move in the interests of 'creative growth'.
It was a diverting spat, but beneath its surface, complex power games were being played out. To bring these into focus, we need to scroll back to 2007, when the Mikhailovsky theatre was in disrepair and its struggling ballet company attracting little attention. Enter Kekhman, then 39, a multi-millionaire fruit importer who described himself , with Freudian grandiloquence, as 'the Emperor of the Banana'. Pouring $40m of his own money into the state-owned theatre, Kekhman persuaded the authorities to appoint him the Mikhailovsky's general director. His discovery of ballet, he said, was 'an adult love, but a love I'm sure of'.
Recruiting a full complement of dancers, and appointing the former Mariinsky star Farukh Ruzimatov artistic director, Kekhman mounted an international tour of a new version of Spartacus. Created by George Kovtun, whose only other choreographic credit was an obscure ballet version of Rasputin, the production was perhaps a little on the brassy side – the gladiators looked like the denizens of a leather bar, the women mostly played whores and the premiere featured live tigers – but it succeeded in making the ballet world sit up and take notice.
In 2009, Kekhman replaced Ruzimatov with Mikhail Messerer. A former Bolshoi dancer, and a member of one of the most distinguished dynasties in Russian ballet, Messerer had defected to the west in 1980, and become a teacher and répétiteur. His appointment signalled a turning point for the Mikhailovsky. He mountedSwan Lakefor the company, not the conventional Petipa-Ivanov version which the Mariinsky danced, but an attractive early 20th century production by the Bolshoi choreographer Alexander Gorsky. Alongside this, he revived Laurencia, a dramatic story-ballet set in Spain. With an expanding classical repertoire, and an ensemble headed by two notable ballerinas, Irina Perren and Ekaterina Borchenko, the Mikhailovsky began to win itself an international reputation. Was Kekhman, observers wondered, that near-mythical figure, a purely disinterested patron of the arts? Or was he playing a longer game? Was he eyeing Iksanov's position at the Bolshoi? Did he have the culture ministry in his sights?
Looking for an impresario who could bring the Mikhailovsky to the United States, Kekhman was directed to the Manhattan offices of Sergei Danilian. Danilian is at once an impresario, a packager of ballet stars, and an agent. One of his clients was choreographer Nacho Duato, who since 1990 had been director of Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza. In July 2010, Kekhman stunned the ballet world by announcing that from the following January, Duato would lead the Mikhailovsky Ballet as artistic director.
The decision was particularly surprising given that the Mikhailovsky's dancers are all ballet-trained and Duato is a contemporary choreographer. 'Everyone thought, 'Is he mad? Is he crazy?' said Duato at the time. 'But if you're not crazy, you don't move forward.'
Many also thought that the decision constituted very shabby treatment of Messerer, who had done more than anyone to establish the troupe's artistic credentials and was now, it seemed, going to have to play second fiddle. The Spanish choreographer created four pieces for the company in the first half of 2011 and the dancers did their best to adapt to his style. 'They're a little afraid of me right now,' Duato said. 'Because they aren't used to modern work – and they haven't interacted intensely with a living choreographer since, well, ever!'
The Russian public was not universally enthralled by Duato's work, but not dismissive either, and abstract pieces such as Without Words and Duende won critical approval. As Duato added to the company's modern repertoire, and his rehearsals took up more and more time, Messerer did his best to ensure that the dancers held on to classical techniques, a task which, he says, was 'not always easy'. It was essential, though, as by then Kekhman and Danilian had announced that Duato was to premiere a new version of The Sleeping Beauty in December, which would tour to New York in 2012. The male lead was to be danced by Leonid Sarafanov, another Danilian client. Sarafanov had been a principal dancer at the Mariinsky and had been persuaded by a highly favourable contract to make the cross-town journey to the Mikhailovsky.
But it was Osipova and Vasiliev's move from the Bolshoi in November that really grabbed the headlines. The pair are huge stars, following several years of performances in productions such as Don Quixote, which have highlighted their dizzying leaps and phenomenal techniques. The couple claim their decision to leave the Bolshoi was a purely artistic one, but many consider that they've sold out, lured by Kekhman's money, the Moscow apartment, and ample time off for lucrative guest appearances. As with Duato and Sarafanov, the whole thing was engineered by Danilian, who is the agent of both dancers. If Osipova and Vasiliev have won any freedom at all, it is the freedom to make more money for Danilian. And given the control that the impresario now exerts over the Mikhailovsky, one might wonder if Kekhman, the consummate player, has himself been played.
On 16 December, Duato's new Sleeping Beauty had its premiere. To present this work in St Petersburg, where, in 1890, Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa created the original production, was a provocative decision. Sitting in the Mikhailovsky's pretty apricot and silver-gilt auditorium among the Russian critics and invited guests, you could feel the tension. The curtain rose. The sets and costumes created by the Serbian designer Angelina Atlagic were charming and the score was conducted with sweeping lyricism by Valery Ovsyanikov. The choreographic text, however, was less engaging. While adhering to the original template, Duato had altered the steps to the point where only a ghostly echo of Petipa's choreography remained. Gone were the jewel-like divertissements, the subtle layers of allegory, the sophisticated use of leitmotif, all replaced by bland pastiche.
In the interval, I joined Messerer and Kekhman for a drink. Unshaven and brutally suave in a suit of ivory silk, Kekhman waxed optimistic about the company's future. Messerer asked what I thought of the production and when I said that Perren and Borchenko were dancing beautifully, but that I missed certain passages which Duato had cut, he looked melancholy. Afterwards, there was a party on stage, at which Danilian gave a speech, calling Duato the successor to Petipa. The Russian critics disagreed. The new choreography, wrote Anna Gordeeva of the Moscow News, was 'a pretty sad sight' and Duato seemed 'deaf to Tchaikovsky's score'. This seems unlikely to be the production with which the Mikhailovsky will conquer New York.
The company is now at a crossroads and the ballet world is waiting to see where Kekhman takes it. Next, he tells me, is a new Duato ballet for Osipova and Vasiliev. Kekhman also says he intends to lure the supremely elegant David Hallberg away from the Bolshoi, an ambition that may prove harder to fulfil given that Hallberg, the first American to become principal dancer of a Russian company, is not represented by Danilian. But success on the world ballet stage is not accomplished by hostile takeovers and the Mikhailovsky needs to become more than a holding company for Danilian's star clients.
If Kekhman needs advice, he could always turn to Messerer, whose knowledge, experience and taste greatly exceed that of anyone else in his entourage. Whether he will, of course, is another matter.
This article was amended on 6 January to reflect the fact that David Hallberg is not represented by Sergei Danilian. In fact, he is represented by Peter Diggins