Russia Interior Ministry Press Service handout, via Reuters

Pavel Dmitrichenko, seen after his arrest, left, and performing as Ivan the Terrible, right, suggested he had not meant for the attack to go so far.

MOSCOW - A dancer at Russia's Bolshoi ballet who made his name playing villains has confessed to ordering the acid attack that nearly blinded its director. Sources said he was angry that his lover was being kept out of leading roles.

Pavel Dmitrichenko, who has danced the crazed monarch in Ivan the Terrible and the villain in Swan Lake, was detained on Tuesday over a crime that shocked Russia and blackened the reputation of the world-famous theater.

Haggard and unkempt, Dmitrichenko was shown in a police video confessing to plotting the attack, in which a masked man threw a jar of sulphuric acid in the face of artistic director Sergei Filin late on Jan. 17.

"I organized this attack, but not to the extent that it happened," he said, apparently meaning he did not intend the attack go so far.

Two other men who had no known connection to the Bolshoi also confessed in the video released by police. One said he had thrown the acid at Filin and the other that he had driven the getaway car.

LifeNews, a Russian website with close ties to the police, said the suspected attacker, Yury Zarutsky, and his driver Andrei Lipatov were found by tracking cellphone calls made from the crime scene.

Dmitrichenko, who is in his late 20s, said he had given the reasons for the attack in a written statement to police but did not say what they were on camera.

A source at the Bolshoi confirmed media reports that the outspoken dancer was angry that his partner, ballerina Anzhelika Vorontsova, had missed out on top roles including the lead in Swan Lake.

"Filin certainly squeezed out Vorontsova, but that is not a reason to throw acid in someone's face," the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Russia Interior Ministry Press Service handout, via Reuters

Andrei Lipatov, left, allegedly drove the getaway car and Yury Zarutsky, right, is accused of carrying out the attack.

Before flying to Germany for treatment last month to save his sight, Filin, 42, said he believed he knew who was behind the attack and that he thought it was connected with his work. He is recovering and is expected back at work this summer.

The management of the Bolshoi, which declined to make any comment Wednesday, had been hoping none of the ballet company was involved in the attack as this might limit damage to its reputation and morale.

Dmitrichenko, born in Moscow to a family of dancers, had been at the Bolshoi since 2002 and was to dance in "Sleeping Beauty" this month. He could face jail and the end of his dance career.

As artistic director of the Bolshoi's ballet company, Filin had the power to make or break careers in the fiercely competitive world of ballet. Tales of his uncompromising grip on the troupe and his disagreements with dancers have been widely reported in the Russian press.

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Bolshoi Theatre ballet dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko performs in "Ivan The Terrible." Police said Tuesday that his home had been searched.

MOSCOW - Russian police searched the home of one of the Bolshoi Ballet's top dancers on Tuesday over an acid attack that nearly blinded the troupe's artistic director, and detained a man suspected of carrying it out.

The coordinated police action was the first sign of progress toward solving a crime that left Sergei Filin, 42, with severe burns after a masked attacker threw a jar of sulfuric acid in his face outside his apartment on Jan. 17.

The attack has shocked a country used to violent settling of scores and put the spotlight on infighting at one its top cultural institutions. The involvement of any of the artistes would deepen the sense of crisis at the Bolshoi.

Police said the Moscow home of Pavel Dmitrichenko, a Bolshoi soloist who has been performing the lead role in Sergei Prokofiev's Ivan The Terrible, had been searched but did not say whether the search indicated he was being treated as a suspect.

It also said an unnamed suspect had been detained in the suburbs of the capital early on Monday and taken in for questioning. Police sources told Russian media that the man was suspected of throwing the acid at Filin.

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

"The Bolshoi Theatre hopes that this detention today shows that this crime will be solved because it is very important for us all and we are really hopeful that the mastermind as well as the perpetrator of this crime will be identified."

But she looked irritated and became defensive when addressing the possibility of divisions in the troupe, saying: "I think the Bolshoi Theatre troupe is waiting for Sergei's return, and loves him and wishes him a speedy recovery."

She said she did not know the reason for the search of Dmitrichenko's apartment and did not know of any dispute between him and Filin.

Filin was left writhing in agony in the snow for about 20 minutes after the attack. As artistic director of the theater'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 for treatment that is expected to save his sight that he believed he knew who was behind the attack and hinted it might be connected to his work, but refused to give a name.

Dmitrichenko could not immediately be reached for comment. He has been with the troupe since 2002.

The theater 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 criticized 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 theater, 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 criticized for going far over budget.

It has frequently been under fire over its artistic program 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.

MOSCOW — The Bolshoi Ballet's artistic director, Sergei Filin, left a Moscow hospital on Monday to have treatment in Germany after an acid attack that damaged his eyes and face.

Wearing dark glasses but saying he felt well, the 42-year-old said before checking out of the hospital that he knew who was behind last month's attack and made clear he believed it was linked to his work at Russia's prestigious Bolshoi Theater.

"I feel well, I'd even say great, if only my eyes could see a bit better. But I can say I feel well," he told reporters as he left, wearing a netted bandage across the lower part of his face.

Filin told Russian state television about the agony he experienced after the attack, which occurred as he was walking home at night from the Bolshoi on Jan. 17. "I fell on my face in the snow and began to rub snow in my face and eyes," he said.

"I was in terrible, unbearable pain."

He said he lay in the empty street in front of his apartment building for 20 minutes after the attack, pressing his face into the snow, until he caught the attention of a security guard who called an ambulance. 

Filin also told the television crew before leaving the hospital that he forgave his masked attacker, who splashed acid in his face outside his Moscow apartment.

Asked if he knew who had attacked him, he said in the television interview: "Every person has an organ called a heart, and my heart knows who did it, and in my soul I have an answer to that question."

Filin had been one of the most talked-about figures in Russia as head of the ballet for nearly two years when he was attacked. He said the attack followed repeated threats and may have been motivated by rivalry or resentment.

MOSCOW — A masked attacker threw acid in the face of the artistic director of Russia's prestigious Bolshoi Ballet, endangering his eyesight, in what colleagues said on Friday was the culmination of a two-week campaign of intimidation.

Sergei Filin, a former leading dancer at the Bolshoi who has been in the high-pressure job at the heart of Russian culture for nearly two years, was attacked outside his Moscow apartment building as he returned home on Thursday night.

Such is the prestige of Filin's post in Russian life, and its power inside the theater, that stunned current and former colleagues suggested the motive could have been envy, rivalry or even competition for roles.

Filin, his face covered in bandages with holes for the mouth and eyes, sounded relieved to have survived the attack.

"I was scared. I thought he was going to shoot me, honestly ... and I turned to run but he chased me down," Filin told Russia's REN TV.

"He turned and his face was completely covered, either a scarf or some bandage like a mask, only eyes (to be seen)."

The theater's director, Anatoly Iksanov, had no doubt the attack was aimed at sowing discord in an institution that has rarely been at peace in a history stretching back to the era of Catherine the Great.

Filin, 42, had reported having his car tires slashed and his emails hacked in recent weeks, as well as receiving repeated nuisance calls from someone who stayed silent when he answered.

"This two-week campaign has ended tragically and despicably," Iksanov said, adding that the culprit "should be sought among those for whom it was beneficial to compromise the theater leadership".

War for roles?
Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova had been out with Filin at another theater on Thursday evening and parted with him shortly before the attack.

"We just never thought that the war for roles - not for real estate, not for oil - could reach such a criminal level," she said.

Alexander Natruskin / Reuters, file

Several stars at the Bolshoi have complained about alleged unfair treatment at the hands of Sergei Filin, seen here in 2011.

Relatives, dancers and theater administrators flocked overnight to the hospital where Filin was being treated, and later gathered at the theater.

Some suggested that making enemies, or at least generating resentment, was a hazard that came with the post.

"This person was doing his job," Bolshoi soloist Anastasia Meskova said, choking back tears. "Of course, it's clear that there may have been people who were dissatisfied, but I can't even imagine what would have been the reason (for the attack)."

Russian media said Filin had suffered third-degree burns and that doctors believed it would take him at least six months to recover.

Filin told Iksanov he believed he had been followed home, and that the attacker had called his name before throwing acid on his face.

"There are very serious burns on his face, in his ears, on his forehead, his mouth, and of course there are serious concerns about his eyesight," Iksanov said.

Channel One television said doctors were "trying to save his eyesight", but Interfax news agency quoted the theater's press office as saying late on Friday he had undergone successful surgery and that a complete loss of eyesight was not expected.

Filin was to be flown to a burn center in Brussels for further treatment, Novikova said. State television later said it was unclear whether he would be moved there on Friday.

The Bolshoi, which has both ballet and opera troupes, reopened last February after a six-year renovation to its landmark colonnaded building, close to Red Square in the very center of Moscow.

Cultural icon
As a near-mythical icon of Russian culture, it is a magnet for both locals and foreign tourists, and has seen power struggles among both dancers and directors throughout its more than 200 years of history.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of those conflicts, whether driven by egos or artistic convictions, have been played out in public.

In 2003, Iksanov dismissed ballerina Anastasia Volochkova after reportedly saying she was too heavy for male dancers to lift, and in 2011 a senior ballet manager resigned after a scandal over sexually explicit photographs.

After the tightly controlled three-decade tenure of Yuri Grigorovich ended in 1995, the Bolshoi Ballet went through five artistic directors before the appointment in March 2011 of Filin, who joined the Bolshoi's ballet troupe in 1988.

Filin's predecessor Alexei Ratmansky, who is now an artist in residence at the American Ballet Theater, said the attack was "no coincidence."

In a Facebook posting, he called the Bolshoi a "revolting sewer" plagued by hangers-on, ticket scalpers and "half-crazed fans ready to chew through the throats of their idols' rivals."

He used the familiar version of Filin's name to end his posting with the words: "Seryozha - the swiftest recovery, and courage!"

Filin's mother, Natalya, said he had been threatened but that she did not know who could have been behind the attack, according to the RIA news agency.

"What's important to me now is the health of my son, that he does not lose his eyesight," she said.

Joy Womack, an American dancer at the Bolshoi, urged "friends, fans and family" on Facebook to "stop what you are doing and pray for Sergei."

"He was attacked by evil people," she wrote. "Pray that the attackers would be apprehended and dealt with in the severity of the law."

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