Bolshoi Violinist Sedov Dies After Pit Fall Jul 18th 2013, 16:23
A Bolshoi violinist died after falling into an orchestra pit, in the latest of a string of disasters for the famous theatre.
Viktor Sedov, who had worked in the Russian opera house for around 40 years, died from his injuries in a hospital on Wednesday after plummeting into the pit below the stage.
The exact circumstances of the 65-year-old's fall remained unclear and Bolshoi declined to comment.
It continued the run of bad luck for the theatre, which began when a masked man with a jar of sulphuric acid almost blinded ballet maestro Sergei Filin.
Sergei Filin is blind in one eye after the attack in January The attack exposed bitter infighting and rivalries at the Bolshoi, where the director was subsequently replaced.
Mr Filin, who was left writhing in agony in the snow outside his Moscow apartment late at night, is now blind in one eye and can hardly see out of the other.
One of the theatre's top dancers, Pavel Dmitrichenko, confessed to hiring two accomplices to attack Mr Filin but said he had not expected acid to be thrown in his face.
Another of the theatre's most esteemed ballet dancers, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, once a fierce critic of Mr Filin and a former rival for the director's post, was later thrown out of the company with no public explanation.
The head of Bolshoi Theatre Anatoly Iksanov was sacked from his office last week.
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