The Bolshoi Is Back.

The Soviet empire is gone, but Russia's signature ballet troupe is going strong--with new leadership and spectacular virtuosity on its first U.S. tour in a decade

THE SCENE inside the Bolshoi Theater is moving, strange and stunning.

On the bridge spanning the orchestra pit is Aleksei Fadeyechev, the Bolshoi Ballet's dynamic young director and the choreographer of the new Don Quixote that is about to have its first dress rehearsal. In the back of the house is Vladimir Vasiliev, creator of some of the Bolshoi Ballet's most unforgettable memories as a premier danseur and now the general and artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater.

On stage, giving final notes to the dancers, are Aleksei's celebrated father, Nikolai Fadeyechev, and one of history's great Kitris, Ekaterina Maximova. Students too young to have witnessed the magic of Vasiliev, Maximova or either of the Fadeyechevs crowd the doorways. There is new magic afoot. Anticipation is palpable, electricity fills the air. The vast gold curtain that is still decorated with a herringbone of hammers and sickles rises, the orchestra starts to play, the dancers move. Dear Lord, how they move.

The men stretch more, the soft plies of their landings now the rule rather than the exception. Double and triple tours breeze by with almost insolent splendor. The women of the corps de ballet boast a line that is, if anything, more elongated. They all still make an event of a preparation but nevertheless shock with the resulting ease of their flight. They all still mean every step they take.

It is the same as long ago, really; yet it is radically different. It is classical ballet at its best, and it cannot stand still. The Bolshoi Ballet has survived the collapse of Soviet power and changing artistic fashions--and it is coming back to the United States in triumph.

The legendary Moscow company is returning in a landmark American tour presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and David Eden Productions. "It is the first real tour with the entire Bolshoi Ballet since democracy came to Russia," said Vasiliev, dismissing the several quasi-legitimate tours bearing the Bolshoi name since 1989, the annus mirabilis in which the Soviet empire unraveled.

The old Bolshoi dancers under Yuri Grigorovich--an era with its own unique glories that saw its twilight with that of the Soviet Union--were an army of exquisite earth mothers side by side with muscular danseurs whose solid bodies belied their capacity to simply fly. Aleksei Fadeyechev, perhaps the noblest of that breed, still has that Nijinskian physique at 41. So does Vasiliev at 60, his youthfulness barely hidden these days by a silvery patrician goatee.

Never mind the world outside. Never mind the curious cultural limbo of Russian life today, signified by everything from the communist emblems that there is no money to remove--on everything from Moscow street corners to the Bolshoi's own walls--to the sprouting McDonald's restaurants within walking distance of the colossal statue of Karl Marx that still faces the Bolshoi across Teatralnaya Square. Never mind, either, the amazing and frantic changes in Moscow in the last decade: a shopping mall across the street from the old Lubyanka prison, a touching museum carved out of the apartment where the poet Mayakovski shot his brains out in despair, outdoor cafes with Muscovites actually enjoying themselves in the Alexander Gardens near the Kremlin walls, political demonstrations of every stripe at the Bolshoi's own doorstep.

Never mind, for now, the rubber rubles or the positively frightening politicians that attend the birth of a new democracy. Never mind all that: The Bolshoi Ballet is dancing, and everything seems absolutely right with the world.

History moves on, takes unexpected turns, surprises. Memory, too, carries its own surprises. It is with more than a hint of nostalgia for past triumphs as well as with a proud and hopeful gaze at a luminous future that the Bolshoi Ballet is rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the Soviet empire. "Bolshoi" means "big" in Russian, and the Bolshoi Ballet still thinks big, dances big, dreams big. There is nothing quite like it anywhere in the world.

Founded in 1776 and at home in its present building since 1856, the Bolshoi Ballet has survived centuries of czars and communist commissars, a revolution, a couple of cataclysmic fires and as many world wars, artistic upheavals and even apathy. It is still here. It has survived Stalinist purges, the period of stagnation, glasnost and perestroika, the brutal drop in state support. And it is still here.

It has found an ally in UNESCO, which has centered international attention on this jewel of the dance world. UNESCO is orchestrating donations for the desperately needed renovations of the old theater and its studios and for the nearly completed sister theater next door, where the Bolshoi will perform while its customary home is being refurbished. The new structure is an elegant postmodern architectural commentary on the original 1856 design for the familiar old Bolshoi Theater. Like the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi will soon have twin theaters in which to present its ambitious ballet and opera.

Vasiliev is right about one thing: The company, as seen during last summer's rehearsal, does seem together in a way it has not been in living memory. Also, with Fadeyechev in charge of the company and Vasiliev directing both opera and ballet operations at the Bolshoi Theater, it is the dancers who are running the show. They mean to celebrate the Bolshoi's illustrious history, and to make some history of their own in the process.

It was not always thus. Flash back twenty years, to the time when the Bolshoi Ballet was most deeply divided against itself. At the 1980 International Ballet Festival in Havana, Alicia Alonso, ever the gracious diplomat, managed to invite all the warring parties: Grigorovich's Bolshoi Ballet dancing his Spartacus and Romeo and Juliet at the Teatro Roldan, then Vasiliev and Maximova as special guests of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba across town at the Garcia Lorca, where Galina Ulanova was the guest of honor at Vasiliev's first-ever Albrecht opposite Alonso.

It was more than a little eerie that the two camps avoided each other even at breakfast in the old Havana Hilton, where the entire Russian contingent was staying. Ulanova said at the time that "they say our old Romeo and Juliet is too old fashioned--I don't think we will ever see it again. And I am sorry for that, because it is part of our cultural heritage, and I know it was very beautiful."

Somewhere in dance heaven, the sublime Ulanova must be smiling. It is not only that the original Lavrovsky Romeo and Juliet that made her a star is back, in a loving reconstruction that is the Bolshoi's calling card once again, but also that classics including Don Quixote and Giselle have been rethought, that works new to Russia and new to the world fill the Bolshoi stage at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Perhaps best of all, there is collegial atmosphere backstage, a marked absence of the well-founded, KGB-inspired paranoia that permeated the lives of artists and just about everyone else under the Soviet regime. Bolshoi dancers no longer "defect"; now they can just move, wherever they want, free to return home anytime. Though very much in demand throughout the world, most want to stay and live the Bolshoi's new adventure.

"I know I might have opportunities in other companies and other countries," said Gennadi Yanin, the handsome dynamo for whom Vasiliev choreographed his 1999 Balda at the Pushkin Festival. "But I was born in Moscow, I always wanted to dance with the Bolshoi, and now I have this incredible opportunity. Sometimes I wish I could have danced with the greats like Plisetskaya, Maximova, the real legends. I look around, and I know that it is not the same now. But there is nowhere else I would rather be."

He is not alone. Some dancers, like resident Georgian goddess Nina Ananiashvili, maintain their positions as stars of the Bolshoi while enriching the artistic lives of companies from New York and San Francisco to Pads and Tokyo.

It is, to say the least, nice to be able to tour with dancers who are not in danger of breaking ranks at the first opportunity. And these dancers define today's Bolshoi. It is not just the famous Ananiashvili. Nadezhda Gracheva, Galina Stepanenko, Sergei Filin, Dmitri Belogolovtsev and Yuri Klevtsov are all stars in Russia who have made strong impressions beyond its borders. It is the younger dancers American audiences may discover in this tour, distinctive artists including Yanin, Anna Antonicheva, the gentle Svetlana Lunkina and the feline Andrei Uvarov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Dmitri Gudanov and a corps that takes one's breath away as few ensembles can.

"We have come a long way from life under Soviet conditions," said Vasiliev with the measured optimism of a man who has seen a lot in his day. "Democracy has come to our theater the same as it is coming to our country. It can be daunting, and it is a great responsibility for us as guardians of Russian culture. But it is a very exciting time."

He continued, "Our new contract system gives Bolshoi artists both security and flexibility: They know what their obligations are to us as their home theater, and they also know that they are free to accept engagements with other companies. Look at Nina, perhaps the best example for audiences in the United States: She is prima ballerina of the American Ballet Theatre and she is loved in the Houston Ballet, but the Bolshoi is and always has been her home." Ananiashvili is scheduled to be the opening night Kitri and Juliet in Washington, D.C., and everywhere else in this tour.

"We also now can afford to be more open to Western influences," he added, surrounded by the gold and red velvet of his director's lair backstage. "We can experiment more. And that is just the beginning: our new theater next door will let us introduce new works." The dancers are at least as hungry for these as Moscow audiences, and their needs are being met at a disarming clip. Balanchine is part of the Bolshoi repertory, and Jerome Robbins's legacy is coming. The iconoclastic Boris Eifman is a welcome presence, and even Grigorovich may surprise us yet.

"I would love to have a new ballet from Grigorovich," said Fadeyechev with a wicked smile that brought to mind his star turn as Grigorovich's enigmatic Ivan the Terrible years ago. "And we have asked him for one, but he doesn't seem to come through. Who knows? I tell you, anything is possible. Anything, as long as we can keep dancing."

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Here is the Bolshoi Ballet's American tour at a glance. The American premiere performances of Fadeyechev's new Don Quixote and the reconstruction of Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet are the repertory in every city except New York, where the Lincoln Center Festival will present the Bolshoi Ballet July 18-23 in the Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadere, and scenes from Grigorovich's Spartacus, Fadeyechev's Don Quixote and Balanchine's Symphony in C.

Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., May 30-June 4. Call [phone] or [phone], or visit www.kennedy-center.org.

Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, June 6-10. Call [phone] or visit www.auditoriumtheatre.org or www.ticketmaster.com.

Paramount Theatre, Seattle, Washington, June 14-18. Call (206) 292-ARTS or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California, June 21-25. Call [phone] or visit www.musiccenter.org.

Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, California, June 27-July 2. Call [phone] or [phone], or visit www.ticketmaster.com.

Also note the Bolshoi Theater's own Web site (www.bolshoi.ru), which will soon feature an online shop and already offers up-to-date biographies and photos of both the Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera, with text in Russian and English.

Octavio Roca, a contributing editor of Dance Magazine, is the San Francisco Chronicle's dance critic.