"I began taking ballet classes because in Russia at the time it was considered the thing to do. Ballet was immensely popular. It was constantly shown on television and being a dancer was very prestigious. Then I saw Leonid Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet and I knew I wanted to be a dancer. Now I am so happy I made this choice, for I know I am in the right job. Dancing is my entire life. My whole heart is in it."

Moscow born Vyatcheslav Mikhailovich Gordeev is the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet and the director general of the Russian State Ballet Company, which is staging performances of The Nutcracker at the Point next week. I had seen many photos of Mr Gordeev in books about the Bolshoi, dancing leading roles such as the eponymous hero of Spartacus, Basil in Don Quixote and, indeed, the Prince in The Nutcracker, but either the photos were black and white or the role required a wig, so I was unprepared for his red hair. In fact he looks very much the way foreigners expect Irishmen to look, and considerably younger than his 48 years.

He told me how his Moscow ballet school, recognising his talent, had recommended that he audition for the Bolshoi Academy, though by then he was 12 and students are supposed to start training at the Bolshoi at 10. Despite this and the fact that the competition was very tough "there were over 600 applicants fighting for only two vacancies in the class for especially gifted children" - he was accepted. Soon he was training under the guidance of famous teachers such as Assaf Messerer (choreographer of the ever popular Spring Waters) and Leonid Lavrovsky, whose Romeo And Juliet had affected him so deeply.

On his graduation in 1968 no fewer than three ballet companies offered him contracts as a soloist but he wisely chose instead to join the Bolshoi company as an ordinary member of the corps de ballet because "the Bolshoi is like no other company in the world." Before the year was out he had become a soloist with the Bolshoi and has been a principal dancer in leading roles ever since. Then in 1973, he won the Gold Medal at the Moscow International Ballet Competition.

In 1982 he began to choreograph, starting with a ballet film, Poeme, to the music of three symphonic poems by Franz Liszt: Orpheus, Hamlet and Wfazeppa. Since then he has choreographed many original ballets for the stage, as well as reconstructing the choreography of classical ballets by Petipa and Ivanov, as he has done with The Nutcracker. In 1993 he was nominated Best Choreographer in Europe and, in 1994, received the Bejart Prize. Then, last year, he was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi. I asked what it was like to take over the post after Yuri Grigorovitch had held it for 30 years.

"I always said his successor would be a very unhappy man," he laughed, "because he would have to do so much cleaning out. Little did I think that I would be that man. Well, I am still cleaning! But I am not unhappy, for the Bolshoi company has the biggest artistic potential in the world."

With such a full time job I wondered how he had time for the Russian State Ballet, especially as he had told me that he had two small children, a boy and a girl?

"Practically all my time is now spent at the Bolshoi," he explained, "but I cannot abandon the Russian State Ballet, to which I have given 13 years of hard work. All the dancers have been personally chosen by me and, although I am unhappy that I cannot give them much time any more, I know they will maintain the standards I have set. Their artistic discipline is so good I am sure they will not fail me, even in my absence."

The company, formerly called the Russian Ballet Company of Moscow, was founded in 1979 as a touring company, though it spends three months of every year at its home base in the Moscow House of Arts. I commented on the fact that Anjelika Taguirova - the company's ballerina, who bears a strong facial resemblance to the former Royal Ballet ballerina Lynn Seymour and physically resembles the famous Yekaterina Maximova of the Bolshoi - had been dancing a leading role with the Bolshoi since he became its artistic director. Was he stealing from his old company? He shook his head emphatically.

"Anjelika will remain with the Russian State Ballet," he said decisively. "So will three other ballerinas from the company who also have contracts to perform with the Bolshoi. There will be no takeover. But recently Anjelika danced there the role of Anuita in Vladimir Vasiliev's ballet, based on Chekhov's short story Anna Round The Neck, created for his wife Maximova."

In the forthcoming production of The Nutcracker - incidentally the first performed in full since the Scottish Ballet brought it to the Point in 1991 - the 22 year old Taguirova will dance the role of Maria. Somewhat confusingly, this role is sometimes called "Masha" in Russia and is always known as "Clara" in the West, where it is often danced by a child. Here, however, it is the lead role, since the Stahlbaums' small daughter dreams she is herself the partner of the Nutcracker Prince, danced by the 28 year old Lourii Bourlaka, who joined the Russian State Ballet immediately on graduating from the Bolshoi Academy.

Introducing Taguirova and Bourlaka to the Russian Ambassador Mr Nikolai Kozyrev and the press when I met him in September, on his first ever visit to Ireland, Mr Gordeev said he hoped the delightfully calm and welcoming atmosphere of the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre was a good omen, for the forthcoming production (the Bank of Ireland's Mastercard is one of the production's sponsors, the others being RTE and The Irish Times). Perhaps he was thinking of the clamour which greeted his latest creation for the Bolshoi, The Last Tango, set to the music of the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzollo.

"It was the only ballet ever staged at the Bolshoi not done to live music," he laughed. "We had to use recorded music because the Bolshoi Orchestra could not play such sounds. The ballet was classically based, with a contemporary feel and costumes and decor were very modern. Never have such things been seen before at the Bolshoi."

"You mean, it had the same plot as the Marlon Brando film?" I asked incredulously.

He nodded.

"CNN called it a revolution at the Bolshoi!" he said, grinning.

I mentioned the attempt by ballerina Nadezhda Pavlova, with whom he had a long running partnership, both professional and personal, to found a ballet academy in Dublin - an attempt which failed due to lack of finance.

"If the Irish government would back it, I would seriously consider founding both a company and a school in Dublin," he said immediately. "I have much experience of this. The Russian State Ballet had no history when I started with it. Now it is one of the best companies in the world. And in Mexico I founded several ballet schools in different cities, which are all running successfully. Then Irish dancers like James Dunne, whom I saw dance at the Arbesque Concourse in Perm last June, would not need to train - or seek work - abroad."