Bolshoi music director quits amid tour

The music director of Moscow's famed Bolshoi Theatre announced his resignation in Milan on Monday, his sudden decision revealed on the first day of the troupe's summer tour of Italy.

Alexander Vedernikov blasted the Russian company's management for putting "bureaucratic interests before artistic ones," according to Reuters and Italian media.

"In the Bolshoi Theatre we have a bureaucratic government … that leads to bureaucrats wanting to decide creative questions, too," he said, according to Interfax.

Vedernikov told Reuters he would complete the Italian engagements at La Scala and then move on to guest conductor gigs in Denmark and possibly Norway.

Though the Bolshoi's official spokesperson has not issued a comment, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted the theatre's general director, Anatoly Oksanov, as saying that the conductor had warned a year ago that he intended to leave.

Vedernikov's departure will likely be a blow for the Bolshoi, after he helped rejuvenate the company — home to the Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera — since the 1990s.

The theatre in Moscow is also mired in an ambitious and ever-lengthening restoration project that has closed its doors since 2005.

The project was initially scheduled to take three years, but one of the designers estimated in March that the reopening would likely be in 2013. The budget has also soared past the initial $700 million US to more than $1 billion.

With Russia embroiled in the economic crisis like the rest of the world, many fear that damaging cost-cutting will be in store for the restoration and its growing bill.

Originally founded by Catherine the Great in 1776, the Bolshoi Theatre has been at its current site since 1825. Prior to the current work, there was little renovation over the years, save for an interior revamp after a fire in 1856.