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The world’s favourite ballet company, the Bolshoi Ballet, is back in Britain this spring.

In March and April the Russians will tour the UK, the country that launched the company’s triumphant 1956 world domination as the cultural flower of the then Soviet Union.

Today many Bolshoi dancers rue the passing of that discredited Communist rule that is replaced for what is to them a disastrous market economy. “In the old days,” says Svetlana Lunkina, 26, a truly classical ballerina in the Russian style so adored by the British public, “it was the directors who knew about ballet and the theatre who made decisions, it is not like that anymore at the Bolshoi.” Lunkina, tall, delicately boned with intense ink black eyes, was called “the hope of the company” by one of the five short lived Bolshoi Ballet artistic directors since the legendary Yuri Grigorovich “The Stalin of the Bolshoi” was deposed in 1995. She will remain steadfast to her classical roots in Britain, dancing 2 performances of Swan Lake, two of her signature role of Giselle and the seductress Phrygia in Grigorovich’s popular Spartacus.

Svetlana Lunkina as Giselle
© Nadezhda Bausova

But, according to the majority of the Bolshoi dancers, the company will be touring Britain this spring under a cloud of distrust and discontent. A shadow, accredited by a consensus of opinion, to new director, Alexei Ratmansky, 35, who has a reputation as a moderniser with a brief to drag the Bolshoi Ballet kicking and screaming into the 21st century. But, reason Lunkina and her colleagues, is this really necessary? “We feel very uncomfortable with this policy,” she explains. “We told Ratmansky that what he wants to do with the company is against our traditions; he replied, I know and now the traditions will be different.” A glimpse of Ratmansky’s vision was perhaps seen in the company’s 2004 London season when the company presented a ruthlessly modernistic Ratmansky commission, Moldovan choreographer Radu Poklitaru’s version of Romeo & Juliet, directed by British opera producer, Declan Donnellan. It confirmed what most British dance lovers have known for some time that when it comes to modern dance, the Russians still don’t get it.

Svetlana Lunkina as Phrygia in Spartacus
© Damir Yusupov

When the West discovered the Bolshoi Ballet, redoubtable female dancers like Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya, were the darlings of dictator Stalin and his ruling Communist elite, and the realisation of their theatrical, and more personal, desires were only a phone call away. Today dancer power is in a different league. “Our company is based on our heritage and continuity, to throw all that away is just destruction for its own sake,“ insists Lunkina. “But the dancers are so strong, so talented and so devoted to the Bolshoi Ballet ideals they pull themselves together and produce brilliant performances that sometimes amaze even ourselves. There is hope yet.”

Lunkina’s home is in Moscow which she shares with her husband of three years, Slava Moskalev, and their three-year-old son, Maxime. The couple met 5 years ago when Moscow born Moskalev brought Lunkina in to dance at a ballet Gala he was promoting. “Promoting is only one of my occupations,” he growls, a true modern Russian man. “I am also a banker and I have my own business producing golf clubs. No vineyards or oil fields,” he adds with a Slavic stare. Lunkina will spend most of the Bolshoi Ballet UK tour alone, as Moskalev will stay home looking after Maxime. “It will be hard,” she admits, “but I will spend a lot of time on the telephone.” And what of the future of the world’s favourite ballet company? “The Bolshoi is greater than any individual,” she replies. “I know which will survive.”