Bolshoi veteran says accused dancer was denied roles

By Thomas Grove MOSCOW (Reuters) – A prominent former Bolshoi Ballet principal told a Russian court on Monday that the victim of an acid attack had denied roles to the main suspect in the crime, a younger dancer he said could have had a "brilliant career" at the renowned theatre. Nikolai Tsiskaridze, who lost his job at the Bolshoi in the aftermath of the attack on the ballet company's artistic director Sergei Filin, testified in the trial of dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, who faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted. Tsiskaridze, who had feuded with Filin and longtime former Bolshoi director Anatoly Iksanov, told the court that Filin had more than once engineered Dmitrichenko's removal from roles that the theatre had already advertised he would play.