On Their Toes for Bolshoi

It was the lovers of dance, not the lovers of glitz who were at the Bolshoi Ballet’s Shrine Auditorium opening Tuesday night. And while it was wonderful to have such an informed audience on hand, a bit more glitz would have been nice.

After all, this is the Bolshoi, the Greatest Dance Company in the World, the 1927 Yankees of ballet. They deserve a gala opening. And this was their first visit since 1987.

In the past few years, the Bolshoi junior varsity has come to town, but Tuesday’s opening wasn’t the not-quite-ready-for-prima-ballerina dancers. This was the real thing.

One reason there wasn’t a charity gala attached to the opening was that historically, the Bolshoi has attracted political protesters. There have been bomb threats, explosions, protests and people chaining themselves to the doors. Not the kind of evening a charity wants to be connected with. But now with glasnost, it was practically a lovefest. It was a great event in need of a great party.

There were a few traces of glitz in the well-dressed crowd. Donna Mills, Dionne Warwick, Joyce Heyser of “L.A. Law,” Lew Ayres, “Murphy Brown’s” Faith Ford, Mayor Tom Bradley and socialites Dora Mahboubi, Jane Weintraub and Patricia Kennedy. But by and large, it was loyal dance fans who made the opening a sellout.

“These are ballet people,” said Mills, once a ballet dancer in Chicago. “People who want to see the Bolshoi want to see pure classical ballet.”

They were also avid memorabilia collectors. The inevitable marriage of Russian ballet and American marketing produced T-shirts selling like crazy for $20 each.

After the performance of “Ivan the Terrible,” a buffet dinner for the dance company and 200 American guests was held in the Shrine’s exposition hall. While sipping Russian vodka, Bolshoi artistic director Yuri Grigorovich expressed pleasure with the evening.

“An audience in Moscow or Los Angeles is the same,” he said through a translator. “If they applaud, they like it. If they give it a standing ovation, they like it a lot.”

They liked it a lot.