Icons of the Bolshoi : Fabled Russian stars Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev will bring Moscow’s Golden Age of dance to UCLA’s Royce Hall

They were known as “the Bolshoi babies,” mere teen-agers. That was back in 1959 when impresario Sol Hurok brought the fabled Russian ballet company to these shores for the first time, breaking new horizons for dance audiences.

Today, Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev stand as reminders of Moscow’s Golden Age and, as such, can turn UCLA’s Royce Hall into a glittery showplace Saturday when they appear there in a program called “Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet.”

Now, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the married duo roams the world as independent contractors--performing everywhere from Buenos Aires to Paris to New York with their little handpicked troupe of lesser-known dancers scrambling to keep careers afloat in Eastern Europe’s topsy-turvy economy.

But for all of Maximova and Vasiliev’s glory--they became icons, epitomizing Russian ballet as an ideal of virtuosity, soulfulness and heroism--their names do not have the household recognition of a Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev, with good reason:

They never defected to the West, where opportunities for capitalizing on celebrity come with the territory, “because our roots are in Russia,” said the 52-year-old Vasiliev through a translator, “and we do not like the idea of being fugitives.”

Instead, they waged a revolution inside the Bolshoi Ballet itself these past 12 years, opposing--along with other luminaries--the reign of company director Yuri Grigorovich.

“He became a dictator,” said Vasiliev, waving his glasses in the air, “an artistic criminal.” The reference is to Grigorovich’s sacking of the time-honored Bolshoi choreography in favor of his own.

“At first we adored him. He was fantastic. But then we were amazed to see his destructive instinct, especially from someone so talented, someone who began with so many wonderful new ideas. He gradually went from being a friend to a megalomaniac stuck in a recycling mode, a Boris Godunov.”

Vasiliev, nursing a cold, lies on the couch in his hotel suite, a shock of blond hair grazing coin-perfect features. Up close, clad in black trousers and turtleneck, he looks remarkably as he did onstage at the Shrine Auditorium in 1975, his last Los Angeles appearance and the last time the Bolshoi enjoyed peace with its starriest eminences.

That was “before the revolution.” Thereafter, he and the others--Maya Plisetskaya, Mikhail Lavrovsky and others--were banished from tours as punishment for protesting their boss’s policies. They still received the obligatory 10 Moscow performances a year (a pittance for dancers, whose careers usually last no more than two decades), but little besides that and the occasional European guest appearance.

Is he bitter about being wasted?

“ Nyet . We had our moment to shine,” until the late 1970s. “I feel no pain for us. Only for those who trusted (Grigorovich) as a choreographer, the younger generation.”

Maximova, entering the room, nods in agreement, but said that she feels bad “also for the decline of artistry within the company . . . because a director who is all-powerful can bring the level down and no one can counteract it.”

They both point to the current situation, whereby many Bolshoi dancers have fled to more hospitable climes and spend most of their stage time as guests with other companies, and not just for economic reasons. One of them, Andris Liepa, signed on to St. Petersburg’s Kirov Ballet.

“Nothing has improved,” said Maximova, her face amazingly youthful at 53. “Grigorovich rules with a tight fist, putting his own ballets on view and not allowing other creative forces to take effect.”

(Asked to respond to the couple’s charges against him, the Bolshoi director said in a prepared statement: “An antagonistic approach to choreography bodes ill for progress. It takes us away from the most important question: Is a ballet good or bad?”)

Maximova and Vasiliev are proud to say that they “did not break” and, in fact, held a news conference several years ago for the express purpose of denouncing Grigorovich. As national treasures and recipients of many Soviet prizes, they had that prerogative.

Vasiliev found ways to wield some small influence. Since 1971, he has choreographed his own ballets. But when, toward the end of that decade, Grigorovich began clamping down on such options, Vaziliev said that he conspired with another authority to create a work:

“I went to the Bolshoi Theater’s general director with my idea for a ‘Macbeth’ ballet. He and his staff were frightened” at the prospect of assuming power of authority, “but said OK--if you can accomplish it in the month of Grigorovich’s absence, which is just what I did.

“Whether he ever saw it I don’t know, maybe through the keyhole. The only conversations we had were by way of intermediaries.”

Things have eased for Vasiliev in the last few years, he said, referring to the dances he has made for smaller companies, the Stanislavski Ballet and the Kremlin Ballet, as well as for companies in the West. Last year, he staged a version of “Don Quixote” for American Ballet Theatre and says it was an agreeable experience for him.

Asked what he might contribute to the choreographic scene here, he volunteered “more drama, more story” to contrast with the popular abstract ballets.

“I respect (George) Balanchine as a great innovator,” he said of the father of plotless works, “but there is more to ballet than beautiful steps and neoclassical symmetry. It is an art that can also convey passion and conflict. And perhaps some in America have forgotten this.”

At any rate, Vasiliev does not take his freedom--to pursue whatever aesthetic--lightly. “For an artist, the most awful thing is to be forced to stop.”

But, in a philosophic stance, he acknowledges that the true creator is never satisfied, “he’ll always find an obstacle, be it a Brezhnev or a Grigorovich. It’s important to remember that one stops being great when he thinks he’s great. Then he’s just a horse with blinders going in circles.”