Orchestra

Orchestra tuning up

Starts:

00:00:00::00

Dancers backstage

Traill:  This is a rare sight. Few from the outside are ever allowed backstage at the Bolshoi, Russia's most famous theatre.

00:11

Auditorium of Bolshoi

Especially not with a full house waiting, and curtain rise just minutes away.

00:24

Bolshoi is Russian for big, and a production here is definitely that. Hundreds of people - musicians, technicians and dancers - are preparing for tonight's performance.

00:33

Svetlana rehearsing

But the most pressure is on 19 year old Svetlana Lunkina, the new star of the Bolshoi Ballet.

00:48

She is their youngest ever soloist and has been dreaming of this moment since she was five.

00:56

Svetlana:  It's a dream... because it's a legend, our divine Bolshoi Theatre. Not everyone is lucky enough to dance here.  It's very difficult...  I still don't believe it.

01:04

Map Russia

Orchestra tuning up

01:25

Rehearsal studio

Traill:  Svetlana is following in the footsteps of two centuries of Russian dancers, and she's being coached by one of the best.

01:41

Yekaterina

Yekaterina:  That's really very ugly when you do it like that.

01:51

Traill:   Few danced as long or to as much acclaim as her teacher, former prima ballerina, Yekaterina Maximova.

01:56

Svetlana:  As a teacher, she is a legend.

02:06

Svetlana rehearsing

It was my most treasured wish to dance with Yekaterina Maximova. My second was to dance at the Bolshoi.

Archival footage Maximova and Vladimir

Music

02:19

Traill:   Maximova, and her husband Vladimir Vasiliev, are legends in the history of the Bolshoi. For many years they were the ballet's most famous pas de deux.

02:47

Vladimir:  I do not eat. I do not drink. I have no money for amusements.

03:02

Vladimir

What do I have? I have my art.  That is what I do from the morning till the night.

Archival footage Maximova and Vladimir

Music

03:17

Traill: Maximova finally retired from the stage eight years ago, at the age of 52.

03:21

Vasiliev went on to become artistic director, but not with the acclaim his dancing had brought him.

03:29

Orchestra

Many of his fellow performers believed he wasn't  up to the role. They went on strike for the first time in the Bolshoi's history.

03:41

Dancer:  It's not possible to imagine a more cynical, insulting decision  than appointing him as the artistic director.

03:49

Traill:  But the theatre was struggling for money, after a drastic reduction in state funding.

03:59

Vasiliev directing

Vasiliev took up his new post promising to heal the rifts and take the theatre in a new direction.

04:05

Vladimir

Vladimir:  We don't have the right to lie to our comrades in the arts. We can't lie behind the scenes - we must free ourselves from this muck.

04:12

Traill:   Now, four years after his appointment, Vasiliev in confident that the Bolshoi is still the great icon it always was.

04:25

Vladimir

Vladimir:  The Bolshoi was always the business card of the music culture of Russia and today nothing has changed.

04:35

Performance

Music

04:59

Traill:   Russian leaders from Tsar Alexander to Stalin and Gorbachev were regular visitors to the Bolshoi, and many of Russia's most famous operas and ballets were premiered here.

05:04

Music

05:14

Exterior of theatre

Traill:   But today, this once grand theatre is falling victim to age. There's been no serious renovation or upgrade of equipment since the present building was constructed in 1856.

05:20

Balcony of Bolshoi

Fewer patrons are being seated in the balconies for fear they could collapse.

05:34

Performance

Music

05:40

Traill: And the performance treated like a royalty under the communist system now at the base wage at about 35 US dollars a month.

05:43

Svetlana Lunkina -
Bolshoi Ballet

Svetlana : "Actually because we don't have enough money - which is pretty obvious, but we're living and doing this because we love our work."

06:04

Traill:   Audience members pay huge sums for tickets, but most of this never makes it to the theatre.

07:10

Scalpers on steps

Scalpers have taken control of ticket sales, and it is now impossible to buy a ticket conventionally. If you want to see a performance, you have to negotiate with scalpers like Igor.

07:27

Woman:  What seats do you have?... So many tickets? Have you bought you the whole theatre?

07:39

Scalper:  We have acquaintances in there theatre.

07:45

Traill:    The Bolshoi has a policy of keeping ticket prices as low as possible. This just makes the Mafia's profits all the higher.

07:51

Woman:  Do many people work here doing this?

08:01

Scalper:  Yeah, there's fifty of us working here by the theatre and another twenty over by the box office - near the metro.

08:03

Woman:  Do you have a boss?

08:18

Scalper:  We pay the police and we pay the bandits.  Each of us have to pay the bandits $400 a month... and to the police, another $100.  So that's $500 a month just to be able to stand here.

08:23

Exterior of theatre/piece to camera

Super:
KIM TRAILL

Traill:   I've just found out that the going price for a ticket in the first row of the Bolshoi theatre is US$250. The price on the ticket, 100 roubles, or US$5, which makes a profit for these guys of US$245.

08:43

Although people are obviously prepared to pay the Mafia's ticket prices, Vasiliev insists he can't raise the Bolshoi's original price.

09:01

Vladimir

Vladimir:  We can't increase the ticket price by ten times right away.  We would get more criticism about that than about the black market ticket sales.  It's an evil  which everyone understand must be fought against.  Scalpers must be finished,  They  must be put in gaol - but the laws say otherwise.

09:11

Performance

Music

09:37

Traill:    With little money coming in, and many of the best artist leaving for overseas, the standard of performances has also come under criticism. The Bolshoi is also accused of being conservative in its choice of repertoire and productions.

09:45

Ivan:  Bolshoi theatre is still conservative and they still maintain the same kind of boring, for this stage, repertoire.

10:06

Music

10:15

Ivan

Traill:  Ivan Salmin is a dancer from Siberia who emigrated to the west in 1991. He now lives in Australia.

10:27

Ivan:  They still have not very open mind. Not dancers. Dancers probably would like to do something different. And to work with different Western choreographers. But people who stand in charge, they still have the same sort of mentality. They're not changed. We already know cases when people expect something big from Bolshoi theatre and then they're disappointed.

10:35

Interior of Bolshoi

Traill:   Despite all its problems, a night at the Bolshoi can still be an extraordinary experience.

11:05

Tonight's performance is a ballet based on a Chekov play, Anjuta. And Svetlana is dancing the lead role.

11:13

Svetlana in performance

Music

11:23

Svetlana:  I feel so uplifted. You might be really tired, or something is hurting or you have no strength and you think, how can I go onstage at the Bolshoi Theatre and dance? Then the music begins - you are in costume - the doors open,  you see the scenery, the stage, the atmosphere and you completely forget about everything.

11:34

Dancers take bow

Applause

12:09

Traill:   There are many challenges ahead for a Bolshoi trying to survive, and hopefully regain some of its former glory.

12:15

Applause

Traill:   Holding on to its starts will be the most crucial.

12:26

Applause

Traill:    At least the company can count on Svetlana. She is not about to be wooed by a lucrative offer from the West. The great tradition of the Bolshoi is too strong.

12:32

Svetlana with flowers

Svetlana:  Every theatre in the world has something unique.  All have their own traditions and something which pulls. The Bolshoi is a divine theatre.

12:52

Ends:01:13:12:00

Reporter        KIM TRAILL

Camera          DAVID MARTIN

Editor             STUART MILLER

Producer        ERIC CAMPBELL