Audiences at the Bolshoi Theatre could find themselves without 11 of its most well-known productions – among them The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, Spartacus and Ivan the Terrible – after a dispute over the rights to Yuri Grigorovich‘s choreographic legacy escalated into a criminal fraud investigation, according to reporting by the Russian magazine Post.
A legacy signed away
At the centre of the case are the copyrights to eleven ballets created by Grigorovich, cornerstones of the Bolshoi repertoire for decades. Those rights are now held by a foundation controlled by Ruslan Pronin, the former manager of the Bolshoi Ballet, who worked as Grigorovich’s assistant in the final years of the choreographer’s life.
Grigorovich died on 19 May last year. Under his will, everything he owned — including his body of work — was to pass to his nephew and sole heir, Nikolai Karatygin. But within weeks of the maestro’s death, both Karatygin and the Bolshoi’s management discovered that Grigorovich had, shortly before he died, signed over the copyright to all of his productions to Pronin.
Pronin subsequently established a non-profit organisation, the Yuri Grigorovich Foundation, and transferred the rights to it. He is its sole founder and director. Royalties, in the Bolshoi Theatre’s case, are about 1 million rubles (€10,000) per performance.
The allegations
Karatygin filed a fraud report as early as December last year, alleging that Pronin had defrauded Grigorovich of his legacy. According to a source at the Bolshoi Theatre cited by Post, and confirmed by independent news source Meduza, at the time the documents were signed the choreographer was 98 years old, living in a care home, on heavy medication, and not fully in possession of his faculties.
The Bolshoi Theatre’s management filed a separate complaint around the same time, and a criminal case followed. The two proceedings were merged in early 2026 and handed to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region.
A source close to the investigation told the Post that despite six months of inquiry, no one has yet been formally charged; Pronin is currently being treated only as a witness. An expert assessment has reportedly already concluded that, given his condition at the time, Grigorovich could not have understood what he was signing.
No comment
Karatygin has declined to discuss his statement to the Interior Ministry in detail, though he has not denied filing it. Neither Pronin nor the Bolshoi Theatre’s press office responded to Post’s requests for comment.
Reporting based on an investigation by Post magazine.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
