His company will have a new artistic director next season, Mikhail Lavrovsky, a former Bolshoi star.

It featured remarkably good, youthful dancers assembled by Vyacheslav Gordeyev, a former Bolshoi star with a strong following.

Perhaps it is because today's dancers cannot inject the passion that the Bolshoi stars, into the 1970's, knew how to convey so naturally.

Mr. Taranda, a former Bolshoi star who heads a company called (believe it or not) the Russian Imperial Ballet, directed the program.

The Bolshoi star created the part in Yuri Grigorovich's version of the ballet to the Khachaturian score in 1968.

That troupe was directed by Vyacheslav Gordeyev, a Bolshoi star well known from past visits.

The question was how the two Bolshoi stars would fit into the Kirov production.

The longtime Bolshoi star thanked Ballet Theater for giving him the opportunity to dance on the Met stage, from which he had been absent since 1975.

And, instead of being partners, each of the Bolshoi stars was paired with a member of the New York City Ballet.

It is no secret that Mr. Gordeyev, like several other Bolshoi stars, has choreographic ambitions of his own.