`WICKED' RUSSIAN BALLERINA SCUFFLES WITH BRITISH TABLOIDS.

FEW DANCERS have appeared in Hello!, a popular European magazine brimming with glossy photos and saccharine-sweet "exclusive" interviews on lifestyles of the rich and famous, be they royalty or pop culture celebrities.

Russian ballerina Anastasia Volochkova, however, a recent guest of the English National Ballet, joined the magazine's high-profile subjects with a seven-page spread in the June 6 issue (which also included pictorial reports of Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant's separation, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair proudly showing off new baby Leo). Dressed in a selection of stunning designer clothes and high-heeled boots, and sparkling with $4 million worth of diamonds (all on loan for the shoot), the six-foot, green-eyed blonde posed in different rooms of a rented apartment.

This was not a publicity shoot, though it appeared just before the premiere of ENB's new Sleeping Beauty. No, Volochkova specifically used the much-read Hello! magazine to refute allegations about her private life that had been made in some British national newspapers. "They were very hurtful," the Kirov ballerina said in the bowels of the Royal Albert Hall before a matinee performance. "and it was very hard not to let them affect my preparation for the role of the beautiful but cruel Carabosse, which was especially created for me. I don't understand why someone would write those awful things about me. I just want people to judge me on stage and not make decisions about me from untrue reports. I needed people to know the truth and that is why I appeared in Hello!

"Unlike other people," she added, "I didn't get paid a penny for the pictures, although I spent eight hours posing for them."

Labeling her "The Wicked Witch" in a huge headline that ran across two full pages, a British newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, had reported what it called "the incredible story of how a six-foot Russian ballerina has transfixed a millionaire arts patron, wrecking his marriage, costing him thousands ... and scandalising the world of ballet."

The article proceeded to link Volochkova to the 1995 financial scandals at the Kirov, when $1 million from the company's touring profits mysteriously disappeared and artistic director Oleg Vinogradov was accused, arrested and later released. It also implied that Volokhova's support for the much-criticized Vinogradov was the reason, five months later, that her father was shot several times, though not fatally, on a St. Petersburg street. It also reported that, after a period of abject poverty in her home city, the 24-year-old dancer has had her life transformed, thanks to a rich London lawyer (the "millionaire arts patron") who happens to be vice chairman of the ENB School. Anthony Kerman, 54, a married man and the father of two sons, was reportedly so spellbound with Volochkova's performance last summer when she was in London as a guest of the Bolshoi that he offered to be her patron and sponsor, covering all her expenses, setting her up in a fashionable Bayswater apartment and escorting her to the Opera House and trendy London nightspots--as paparazzi photographs soon revealed.

But this is not true, according to Volochkova in Hello! "It is a tissue of lies," she was quoted as saying. "Very serious allegations have been made and my honor has been touched upon." Then in a series of questions and answers, she emphatically stated that she is not having an affair with Kerman, and that neither she nor her father was in any way connected with the Kirov scandals. It was true, however, she said, that her family had been swindled when selling their home so they could move closer to the theater for her convenience, and that, as a consequence, they had had to sleep on the floors of various friends' apartments for three years.

But Kerman, she insists, acts only as her lawyer and patron, and though he has paid for programs and art work for her solo performances in Russia, she vigorously denies ever having an improper relationship with a married man. Likewise, Kerman was quoted in the article in The Mail on Sunday as saying, "Anastasia is my client, that's all. I am not having a relationship with her. I do not discuss my clients' affairs."

"I am grateful for someone, anyone, who loves my art," Volochkova told Dance Magazine. "It is the most important thing to me, but I wouldn't jeopardize my soul as well as my career. I feel that God is my best help and He keeps me and guides and protects me and that is the only way I want to live."

Upon graduating from the Vaganova School, the 18-year-old Volochkova made her debut with the Kirov company in the dual roles of Odette/Odile. She danced with the company at home in St. Petersburg, and abroad, until in 1998, she was invited by Vladimir Vasiliev, director of the Bolshoi Theater, to come to Moscow and dance with the Bolshoi Ballet as guest artist. Her contract with that company has now expired and she has hopes of returning to the Kirov. "I am going to talk with them while they are here," she said, "and hope that they will offer me some performances. It would make me so happy."

Meanwhile, at the end of the ENB season, Volochkova was planning to stay on in London for a few weeks to give two solo concerts--one at the Russian Embassy, before a small gathering for the new ambassador; the other, an invitation-only concert at the new Linbury Theatre in the Royal Opera House, where she would dance, among other pieces, Homage to Princess Diana, created for her by former Stuttgart Ballet artistic director Alexander Ursuliak shortly after Diana's death. "It is so lovely and I think you will like it," she purred graciously--more like a gentle princess than a wicked witch.