Rasputinesque

The music teacher came out sounding somewhat Rasputinesque, but Mr. Ghiaurov tempered his glowering bass with a few adroit comic touches.

The dolls -- a jug-eared, sheep-eyed President Vladimir V. Putin; his Rasputinesque staff chief, Aleksandr Voloshin; dead-on renditions of balding Communists, woolly-headed right-wingers and other famous rogues -- are the cast of "Kukly," which wrapped up its weekly filming late Thursday on a ramshackle sound stage near the Moscow River.