Theater Actor Crushed To Death During Accident On Stage; Audience Thought It Was A Trick

A theater actor was crushed to death at Moscow’s renowned Bolshoi Theatre during a set change at a live opera show.

Yevgeny Kulesh, 38 is believed to have gone in the wrong direction during the set change on stage and was accidentally crushed under a massive backdrop Saturday. As this happened, other actors and the orchestra unknowingly continued with the act, New York Post reported.

At one point, performers on the stage realized the mishap and pled theater staff to lift the backdrop as the music came to a slow halt. Disturbing footage leading up to the incident showed panicking performers waving their hands, asking for help.

"Stop, stop! Call an ambulance, someone got hit by the backdrop! There’s blood!" a man could be heard yelling in Russian, according to the outlet.

Horrified onlookers on stage were unable to revive Kulesh, BBC reported. The incident left the audience stunned as the curtains were shut suddenly. Spectators later wrote on social media that they initially believed the accident was part of a stage trick.

"The performance was immediately stopped, the audience was asked to leave the hall," the Bolshoi Theatre said in a statement Saturday.

The emergency crew declared Kulesh dead after arriving at the scene. Gruesome images of the scene showed Kulesh’s body crushed below the backdrop.

Police are investigating the incident.

Kulesh worked at the theater for almost two decades and was performing a 19th-century opera "Sadko" by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the time of the incident.

"Backstage is hell. Dancers damage their legs when sets and staircases fall over," Nikolai Tsiskardze, a former dancer at the Bolshoi was quoted as saying by the Post. "We must not blame Yevgeny or find a scapegoat."

Tsiskardze said he has complained about the alleged dangerous situation at the Bolshoi theater for decades. "There is no order, no medicine, no ethics…," he added.

Bolshoi has witnessed tragedies in the past too. In July 2013, a senior violist fell into the orchestra pit and died. In 2011, a ballet soloist was jailed for orchestrating an acid attack on the theater’s artistic director.