The Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow is emerging from the worst ballet scandal in recent history. Its artistic director, Sergei Filin, is still undergoing operations to restore his eyesight after the severe injuries he suffered in a shocking acid attack in January 2013. Since he became director in 2011, the list of Bolshoi dancers has changed considerably: New stars have been imported, while existing ones have left in a wide range of circumstances — some for other companies (claiming the Bolshoi repertory held them back) and others as part of the fallout from the scandal.

I recently spent a week in Moscow watching five of its performances ahead of the company’s appearances in Washington in May and in New York in July. The Bolshoi is so vast and complex an organization that even experienced observers find it hard to grasp its true state of health. Even while I was there, I could scarcely reconcile the fresh, energetic troupe that fielded three impressive casts in Pierre Lacotte’s “Marco Spada” with the stale one that churned out the two dullest “Giselles” of my experience.

Why does the Bolshoi matter outside Moscow? Many seasoned balletgoers ultimately prefer the styles of certain Western companies or that of the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. Yet your knowledge of ballet is incomplete until you’ve witnessed how the Bolshoi can seem the most red-blooded, exuberant and viscerally stirring of ballet companies. As the singing of the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin did a century ago, the best Bolshoi dancing has expressed the soul of a populace.