The Bolshoi and the Kirov are two of the world’s premiere ballet companies. “This summer the two companies will play opposite each other in London’s West End, the Bolshoi at Covent Garden, the Kirov at the Coliseum. Both insist there is no box-office war, nothing more than a market opportunity to rake cash while the west effetely rests. But the haste with which the seasons have been cobbled together and the simultaneity of their launches exposes a breach in the entente and the outcome of the undeclared contest will leave casualties on both sides.”