Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Sol Hurok, the late impresario who coined the label "Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet," reportedly believed there was no such thing as bad publicity. His adage got tested recently when a minicompany of dancers with previous links to Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet toured the U.S. This publication (and others) ran stories about the tour that included charges of false advertising and trademark infringement. Since none of the touring dancers are members of the recently reorganized Bolshoi troupe, the Moscow administration sought to remove the Bolshoi name from the tour.

Until law resembles life, and today's Bolshoi shows us its new colors, the old Bolshoi, as perhaps this contingent might legally have called itself, remains the only Bolshoi we've known for the past thirty years. The hand of Yuri Grigorovich, the now-ousted artistic director who had previously reshaped an even older Bolshoi, still guided this repertory of excerpts and divertissements.

Maria Bylova, Natalia Arkhipova, Yuri Vasyuchenko, and Yuri Vetrov led these performances, just as they might have in Grigorovich's Bolshoi. Each has obviously aged, but none proved beyond the individual challenges presented. To my eyes neither ballerina (nor Vasyuchenko) possesses full star power, but they're not the first Bolshoi "stars" to fall short while being so billed.

Framed by a comely and harmoniously synchronized corps de ballet, a clear, trim Bylova and a decorous, intense Vasyuchenko led the second act of Swan Lake with requisite honor. Don Quixote Suite began with a vivid vignette in which the seasoned miming of Vetrov (as the eccentric Don) gave the audience its only glimpse of the kind of silent-movie acting that Grigorovich largely excluded from his Bolshoi. As the central classical couple, Arkhipova was paired with Mikhail Bessmertnov. She danced with gentle authority and care; he, with a bluff brashness that revealed more than it concealed about his uneven dancing.

The program's middle portion consisted of numbers Hurok would have called highlights. Before Grigorovich, Bolshoi tradition heated these solo and duo chestnuts to heights of performing that took often hokey material to breathtaking levels. Grigorovich's Bolshoi, with its bent toward Soviet-style "pure" dancing, rarely recaptured the full-blown spirit befitting true highlights. And this lingering-Grigorovich Bolshoi failed to turn these dance bits and pieces into star turns. Still, until a newer Bolshoi comes our way, the older one looks like it can just keep on going.