Anatoly Malkov, the director of St Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, questioned by police after a sting operation revealed him accepting $10,000 from a Canadian impresario, announced his sudden retirement.
Mr Malkov's retirement was immediately approved by Russian Minister of Culture Yevgeny Sidorov.
He told his colleagues he was stepping down of his own free will.The 58-year-old director was entitled to retire two years early as a Nazi-occupation veteran.
His deputy, Valery Shaposhnikov, 48, who has 14 years' experience with the Mariinsky, has been appointed acting-director.
On September 29 Mr Malkov was caught red-handed accepting $10,000 in marked notes from Canadian impresario John Krypton.
Police from the city's economic crime squad also managed to make a video-tape of the transaction using a hidden camera installed in the director's office on the eve of the transaction.
After being apprehended Mr Malkov spent three days in custody.
He was released by investigators in charge of the case after giving a promise not to leave St Petersburg within the next two months, the time they anticipate needing to close the case.
A similar procedure was followed in the case of Oleg Vinogradov, the Mariinsky's chief choreographer, who is also being investigated by police for his part in accepting the cash from Mr Krypton.
Unlike Mr Malkov, nobody has been appointed to replace Mr Vinogradov, who continues in his position.
Mr Vinogradov said, "Despite these investigations I am not standing down and will continue to serve as ballet master and artistic director of the Kirov Ballet troupe.
"My visits to detectives will not disturb our present plans for an annual tour to Japan on November 19 to perform "Swan Lake" and the "Nutcracker Suite" in fulfilment of a contract with the Japanese which continues until 2001," he added.
Mr Vinogradov plans to travel to Japan with the troupe.
But investigating officer Tatyana Moskalenko said that Mr Vinogradov's travel plans will depend on the results of her investigations. She has promised a decision by November 19.
She stressed that at this point both Mr Malkov and Mr Vinogradov are witnesses rather than defendants.
Mr Krypton is the head of Great World Artists, which has organized foreign tours for the Mariinsky for nine years. In an interview published in the Los Angeles Times, last week, Mr Krypton confirmed that he gave the $10,000 to Mr Malkov in league with the police.
He took the action after he became convinced that large sums of hard currency being handed to the management was not being distributed fairly among the dancers. Mr Krypton connected the decline in the Mariinsky's international popularity to scandals surrounding it in recent years.
"Scandalous" was the word he used for the police deal that saw Mr Malkov and Vinogradov set free.
"I helped them [the police] to obtain very strong evidence against the leadership of the theater and the fact the police didn't use it properly says a lot about the weakness of legislative system," Mr Krypton said.
* See Editorial.