WCXX

January's attack, which left ballet maestro Sergei Filin almost totally blind, was the latest in a series of scandals that tarnished the reputation of one of the world's leading theatres during Anatoly Iksanov's 13 years in charge.

The drama over the attack by a masked man carrying a jar of sulfuric acid has had more twists than an on-stage plot, and Iksanov's departure had become all but inevitable after it exposed bitter infighting, rivalry and intrigue at the company.

"A difficult situation had developed around the theatre and the troupe, and everything pointed to the need for renewal at the theatre," Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky said as he appointed Vladimir Urin, until now general director of the Stanislavsky Musical Theatre, a respected Moscow venue.

"He (Urin) will be able to unite the troupe and continue the development of the best theatre in the country and one of the best in the world," Medinsky told a news conference.

He dismissed the suggestion that Iksanov, 61, had been sacked as General Director of the Bolshoi, a job he had held since 2000. Iksanov sat beside him to try to show he had resigned of his own accord and, holding up his arms in gratitude, declared: "Thank you, Bolshoi."

The theatre has been in the news for all the wrong reasons since the January 17 attack on Filin, who was left writhing in agony in the snow outside his Moscow apartment late at night.

The Bolshoi said last month that Filin had been blinded in one eye and had only about 10 percent of normal vision in the other, despite undergoing 18 operations.

One of the top dancers, Pavel Dmitrichenko, who made his name playing villains in Swan Lake and Ivan the Terrible, later confessed to hiring two accomplices to attack Filin but said he had not expected acid to be thrown in his face.

HISTORY OF SCANDAL

Urin will be under intense scrutiny over the unity of the company, the quality of productions and his ability to restore the reputation of the more than 230-year-old theatre.

"I do not plan any revolutions. I understand perfectly well that in this theatre, as in any other, a single person cannot do anything alone. I very much hope that the majority of people working in his theatre - talented, remarkable people - will be my allies," Urin said.

"Only together can we solve the problems that, like in any theatre, exist today in the Bolshoi Theatre."

He faces a tough task after testimony in which Dmitrichenko said Filin had saved the best roles and salary-boosting grants for his favorites, pushing into the wings those opposed to his attempts to modernize traditional Russian ballet.

A top ballet dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, once a fierce critic of Filin who had also challenged Iksanov for his post, was later ousted from the company, without any reason being stated in public.

Tsiskaridze, whose contract was not renewed when it expired last month, had said he was being hounded out of the theatre following suggestions by Iksanov that he might have played a role in inciting the attack.

Intrigue and misfortune are nothing new to an institution whose name translates at The Grand Theatre: it has burnt down three times since being built in 1776 under Catherine the Great, and was also bombed in World War Two.

Scandal has long been endemic behind the cream-colored, eight-columned facade close to Red Square which reopened to great fanfare in 2011 after a $700-million, six-year renovation that restored the theatre's opulent tsarist beginnings, doused its interior in gold-leaf and introduced cutting-edge acoustics.

The theatre's history is laced with tales of tricks to put off rivals: needles left in costumes; crushed glass in ballet shoes; an alarm clock timed to go off during a particularly intense dance sequence; even a dead cat thrown on stage.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman and Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)