Kremlin Prepares Reform of Bolshoi : Theater: Pending management changes may mean loss of jobs for top-level employees, but artists welcome the demise of another ‘totalitarian dragon.’

Any day now, theater insiders say, a big shake-up is finally going to hit the Big Theater--better known as the Bolshoi, Russia’s premier performance center.

Scandal has been simmering at the Bolshoi for years as the prestigious theater, long seen as the crowning glory of Russian culture, bled top performers to the West and engaged in vicious in-fighting over its artistic program.

But only this week did the Kremlin indicate at long last that it would intervene. Sergei Filatov, President Boris N. Yeltsin’s chief of staff, told the Itar-Tass news agency Thursday that a pending decree would put the Bolshoi’s staff on a new employment plan “on the basis of a contract system and competition.”

In other words, Bolshoi workers believe, none of their jobs are safe anymore--particularly those of the theater’s longtime creative masters--ballet czar Yuri Grigorovich, opera director Yevgeny Raykov and orchestra leader Alexander Lazarev.

The Moscow newspaper Vecherny Klub, or Evening Club, reported this week that the theater’s general director, Vladimir Kokonin, had “liquidated” those top creative posts in order to exercise more power himself over what performances the Bolshoi puts on, since he bears ultimate responsibility.

In fact, Bolshoi officials said Friday, no jobs have actually been eliminated. The theater employs some 2,000 people, including 200 in opera, 200 in ballet and 200 in the orchestra.

“No one has been fired yet. No one has seen this decree yet,” said the Bolshoi’s deputy director, Valery Zakharov. “It is too early to speak about any changes.”

If, however, the Bolshoi is indeed in for sweeping change at the top, the news will bring rejoicing in many quarters, especially from performers bitterly disillusioned by how the theater is run.

“The decree would be a most welcome step that would finally destroy one of the last remaining strongholds of the Soviet totalitarian regime in Russia,” said Gediminis Taranda, formerly one of the brightest stars of the Bolshoi ballet. “First, the KGB network in the theater fell, then the Communist Party organization and now this system of artistic directors, which is the third head of the old totalitarian dragon still riding the chariot of the Bolshoi.”

Taranda was fired last February--technically for missing some performances while he was working abroad, but actually, it appears, because he had been leading an opposition movement within the theater.

Moscow theater critic Anatoly Agamirov also hailed the prospect of new blood in the Bolshoi leadership, saying that the theater had turned into “a big collective farm.”

“The director and head masters--that is artistic directors--ruled over everything the way they saw fit, and performers--ballet dancers, singers and orchestra members--led a very miserable existence, being totally dependent on the whims of their masters,” he said.

He noted that ballet master Grigorovich had not produced a new ballet in 15 years, though he had rearranged and revived a few old productions.

The Bolshoi’s opera and ballet repertories have become a particular bone of contention over the past five years, narrowing in Moscow to four or five operas a month--almost all by Russian composers--and about as many ballets. Critics and performers complained that the Bolshoi was growing ever mustier, losing its creative edge just at the moment when it could have been taking advantage of its post-Communist creative freedom.

Dozens of top Bolshoi stars have left in recent years to work for other Russian theaters or abroad, where they enjoy more artistic liberty and incomparably bigger salaries. Among them were such celebrities as ballet stars Maya Plisetskaya, Andris Liepa and Irek Mukhamedov, as well as top singers Vladimir Atlantov, Tamara Milashkina and others.

Indeed, the atmosphere at the Bolshoi appears amazingly poisonous. A half-dozen actors and musicians contacted by The Times on Friday would speak only if they could remain anonymous. One official called back from a phone booth and exclaimed, “Don’t you know that all the phones in the theater are tapped?”

Some used the terms “snake pit” and “hornets’ nest” to describe the ambience at work.

Bolshoi performers have good reason to be depressed. Although they work at what is probably Russia’s most renowned cultural institution, mid-level performers generally earn only about $100 a month. Most depend heavily on foreign tours, during which they can earn from $30 to $100 a day. Those foreign earnings are meant in part to cover expenses, but most performers bring canned food from home to avoid shelling out their precious allowances.

Even their building may be on the verge of collapse. Built over an underground river, the columned pink Bolshoi edifice in central Moscow is in drastic need of repair, and officials say it may need to close next year.

Adding further to the gloom are employees’ fears that life under Kokonin, the general director, may be no better than under their current masters. Like the artistic directors, Kokonin, too, is a leftover from the old Soviet days of Communist control of the arts.