A new star shines at the Bolshoi.

This summer the Bolshoi Ballet is touring the U.S. with artistic director Alexei Ratmansky's The Bright Stream, Pierre Lacotte's restaging of Petipa's Pharaoh's Daughter, and company favorites Don Quixote and Spartacus. Last winter in Manhattan, one of the Bolshoi's principal dancers, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, stopped to chat about his career with Sergei Danilian of Ardani Artists Management translating.

Tsiskaridze, like Balanchine (Balanchivadze), hails from the Republic of Georgia. Although he has guested with the Kirov Ballet, his heart belongs to the Moscow company. "The Bolshoi is always sold out no matter who is dancing. Moscow dancers don't do any promotions themselves because people love to see them," he says, pointing out that the Bolshoi Theater is in the heart of Moscow, accessible to metro lines and five star hotels. The Maryinsky Theater, on the other hand, is outside St. Petersburg, and a long cold walk to the metro. He says the difference in style between the Bolshoi and the Kirov equals the difference between "the soul" of the two cities. "The Bolshoi Theater is red and gold," he says, "while the Maryinsky is white and pale turquoise. St. Petersburg is cooler."

Tsiskaridze was chosen by guest choreographer Roland Petit for the lead in Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades), last revived in Russia for Mikhail Baryshnikov in the early 1970s. How did he land this prize role? "Roland asked me to do some combinations; he watched my eyes, and he said, 'I'm gonna do it for you.'" Petit lavished attention on him, telling him what a great dancer he was, and because of that, he says, "I believed in myself." This was a pleasant change from what he was used to. "In the Russian tradition," the dancer notes, "they always say in the beginning how bad you are, how terrible you are, and it's a favor they are doing to give you this role."

While working on this ballet, Tsiskaridze felt himself mature as a performer. "Petit asked me to be more tragic than romantic," he says. After Petit, working with other Western choreographers like John Neumeier was "easy for me," he adds. Now he dreams of working with William Forsythe.

Possibly because of his connection with Petit, Tsiskaridze was the first Russian dancer invited to guest with the Paris Opera Ballet since the end of Nureyev's reign. He danced La Bayadere, but had trouble at first. "They have a lot of side lights in Paris. In Russia we have mostly front lights. During rehearsal with fill dress and lights just for me, I did the first step in the third act and I fell down. I didn't expect such bright lights. I tried again and fell down again. The third time I did it! Backstage I heard people clapping." He says artistic director Brigitte Lefevre was so warm and welcoming that she was "almost like a mother to me." Tsiskarizde claims that his time in Paris was the best moment in his life. "I'm not a sentimental person," he says, but when it was over, "I started to cry."

When asked about the recent change in artistic direction at the Bolshoi, a jaded quality creeps into his voice. (The Bolshoi has had six artistic directors since Yuri Grigorovich relinquished the post in 1994.) "Whoever is directing the company," Tsiskaridze says, "is less important than what I'm doing onstage." However, he is steeped in Bolshoi tradition, having had as his first teacher Pyotr Pestov, who also taught Alexander Bogatyrev, Yuri Vetrov, Vladimir Malakhov, Ratmansky, and American Ballet Theatre's Gennadi Saveliev and Sasha Radetsky. But he cites his favorite teacher as Nikolai Fadeyechev, who was Maya Plisetskaya's lifelong preferred partner. Tsiskaridze's advice to younger dancers? "If you believe in what you are doing, it will happen."

The Bolshoi Ballet tour opens July 18 at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and ends Aug. 14 at Segerstrom Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, CA.