MOSCOW — One of Russia's best-known ballerinas and post-communist celebrities was fired on Tuesday by the Bolshoi Theater after a war of insults more reminiscent of a family feud than a pas de deux.
Theater officials are charging the ballerina, Anastasia Volochkova, with one of ballet's deadly sins: They say she has become too fat.
"She is heavy for a ballerina; she is hard to lift," Katerina Novikova, the theater's spokeswoman, said Monday.
Volochkova, 27, spoke of mysterious forces working against her — she wouldn't identify them — and also said theater administrators, working on behalf of those forces, did not like her and had plotted to push her out. She says she is in top form, weighing in at 109 pounds and following a strict diet.
"I don't eat ice cream now," said Volochkova, who once told a Russian interviewer that she "adores" it. "I eat spinach leaves and vegetables."
"This is a planned conspiracy against me," she said of the dispute, which has enthralled the Russian press and has involved security guards, a missing dance partner and publicity machines working overtime. On Tuesday, after her dismissal, she and her lawyer said they would sue the Bolshoi over her contract, which expired on June 30 but should have been extended, they said.
The Russian press has been reporting that the blonde ballerina, who has the looks of a fashion model and behaves like a star, is nearly 6 feet tall, making her even more unwieldy. Volochkova said she is 5 feet 7 inches. "She is a modern young woman; she wears heels," her publicist, Gela Naminova, said, explaining the discrepancy.
The charges have flown so fast and furiously that Volochkova, after much negotiation, agreed to have her height measured on Tuesday by The New York Times. She is, in fact, 5 feet 6 inches tall. "The situation with the Bolshoi is not about height or weight," she said, a chic pink scarf wrapped around her neck, and on the verge of tears. "Height and weight are not the test of a great ballerina."
Among Volochkova's recent supporters in Moscow has been Suleiman Kerimov, an executive with a major oil company, Nafta-Moskva. Recently, corporate sponsors for her solo performances have included companies like Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly. She has also been accused of difficult, divalike behavior and has attracted publicity for her close friendships with powerful men.
"It's not just her physiological state," said Novikova, the Bolshoi spokeswoman. "It's her character as well. She has her own dressing room. She is not greatly respected." Not one other soloist is in the dressing room with her." Volochkova denied that there was a character problem.