Igor Tsvirko

The Bolshoi Ballet pays tribute to one of its greatest dancers and teachers, Mikhail Lavrovsky, with a show that premiered in Moscow on May 4 and is traveling outside Russia for the first time for three shows in Greece, just a month shy of Lavrov's 76th birthday.

In the early 1970s, the Bolshoi Ballet came to Athens, with a star dancing the title role of Spartacus at a packed Herod Atticus Theater. Mikhail Lavrovsky was at the apogee of his fame at the time and this particular role, which earned him the Lenin Prize, was to become a career milestone.