Rudolf Nureyev

At 55 years old, Rudolf Nureyev has this physical status:

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (born on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk, Siberia, Soviet Union to a Bashkir-tatar family.

He began his early career with the company that in the Soviet era was called the Kirov Ballet (now called by its original name, the Mariinsky Ballet) in St. Petersburg.

He defected from the Soviet Union to the West in 1961, despite KGB efforts to stop him.

This was the first defection of a Soviet artist during the Cold War, and it created an international sensation.

He went on to dance with The Royal Ballet in London and from 1983 to 1989 served as director of the Paris Opera Ballet.

In addition to his technical prowess, Rudolf Nureyev was an accomplished choreographer serving as the chief choreographer of the Paris Opera Ballet.

He produced his own interpretations of numerous classical works, including Swan Lake, Giselle, and La Bayadère.

Early life

Nureyev's grandfather, Nurakhmet Fazlievich Fazliev, and his father, Khamit Fazleevich Nureyev (1903–1985), were from Asanovo in the Sharipov volost of the Ufa District of the Ufa Governorate (now the Ufa District of the Republic of Bashkortostan). His mother, Farida Agliullovna Nureyeva (Agliullova) (1907–1987), was born in the village of Tatarskoye Tyugulbaevo, Kuznechikhinsky volost, Kazan Governorate (now Alkeyevsky District of the Republic of Tatarstan).

Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk, Siberia, while his mother Farida was travelling to Vladivostok, where his father Khamet, a Red Army political commissar, was stationed. He was raised as the only son with three older sisters in a Tatar Muslim family. In his autobiography, Nureyev noted about his Tatar heritage: "My mother was born in the beautiful ancient city of Kazan. We are Muslims. Father was born in a small village near Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkiria. Thus, on both sides our relatives are Tatars and Bashkirs. I cannot define exactly what it means to me to be a Tatar, and not a Russian, but I feel this difference in myself. Our Tatar blood flows somehow faster and is always ready to boil".

Personal life

Nureyev did not have much patience with rules, limitations and hierarchical order and had at times a volatile temper. He was apt to throw tantrums in public when frustrated. His impatience mainly showed itself when the failings of others interfered with his work.

He socialised with Gore Vidal, Freddie Mercury, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, Lee Radziwill and Talitha Pol, Jessye Norman, Tamara Toumanova and occasionally visited the New York discotheque Studio 54 in the late 1970s, but developed an intolerance for celebrities. He kept up old friendships in and out of the ballet world for decades, and was considered to be a loyal and generous friend.

Most ballerinas with whom Nureyev danced, including Antoinette Sibley, Cynthia Gregory, Gelsey Kirkland and Annette Page, paid tribute to him as a considerate partner. He was known as extremely generous to many ballerinas, who credit him with helping them during difficult times. In particular, the Canadian ballerina Lynn Seymour – distressed when she was denied the opportunity to premiere MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet – says that Nureyev often found projects for her even when she was suffering from weight problems and depression and thus had trouble finding roles.

Depending on the source, Nureyev is described as either bisexual, as he did have heterosexual relationships as a younger man, or homosexual. He had a turbulent personal life, with numerous bathhouse visits and anonymous pickups. Nureyev met Erik Bruhn, the celebrated Danish dancer, after Nureyev defected to the West in 1961. Nureyev was a great admirer of Bruhn, having seen filmed performances of the Dane on tour in the Soviet Union with the American Ballet Theatre; although stylistically the two dancers were very different. Bruhn and Nureyev became a couple and the two remained together on and off, with a very volatile relationship for 25 years, until Bruhn's death in 1986.

In 1978, Nureyev met the 23-year-old American dancer and classical arts student Robert Tracy and a two-and-a-half-year love affair began. Tracy later became Nureyev's secretary and live-in companion for over 14 years in a long-term open relationship until death. According to Tracy, Nureyev said that he had a relationship with three women in his life, he had always wanted a son, and once had plans to father one with Nastassja Kinski.

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Career

Nureyev and his siblings were taken to a ballet performance of the Cranes' mother, who fell in love with dance. He was encouraged to dance in Bashkir folk performances as an infant, and his precocity was immediately recognized by teachers who encouraged him to study in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). Nureyev auditioned for the Bolshoi ballet company during a tour stop in Moscow with a local ballet company and was accepted. However, he thought that the Mariinsky Ballet school was the best in the world, so he left the local touring company and purchased a ticket to Leningrad.

Nureyev was unable to enroll in a major ballet school until 1955, age 17, when he was accepted by the Vagranova Academy of Russian Ballet of Leningrad, the Mariinsky Ballet's associate school. Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin took an interest in him as a choreographer and allowed Nureyev and his wife to live together.

Nureyev performed with the Kirov Ballet (now Mariinsky) after his graduation in 1958. He went straight beyond the corpse and was given solo roles as a principal dancer from the start. Nureyev has been closely working with Natalia Dudinskaya, the company's senior ballerina and wife of its director, Konstantin Sergeyev. Dudinskaya, a 26-year-old boy, was the first girl to first select him as her partner in the ballet Laurencia.

Nureyev became one of Russia's top-known dancers before long. In his three years with the Kirov, he performed 15 roles, many opposite his partner, Ninel Kurgapkina, with whom he was notably younger than him. Nureyev and Kurgapkina were invited to dance at a dinner at Khrushchev's dacha, and they were allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union in 1959, performing at the International Youth Festival in Vienna. He had been told by the Ministry of Culture that he would not be able to travel abroad again a long time. Nureyev interrupted a Don Quixote performance for 40 minutes by insisting on dancing in tights rather than in the customary trousers. He appeared in the end, but his new dress code was adopted in later performances.

Nureyev had made a name for herself in the Soviet Union by the 1950s.

Nureyev's rebellious demeanor and non-conformist attitude made him the unlikely participant for the trip, which the Soviet government deemed necessary to demonstrate its "cultural sway" over the West as the Kirov Ballet was set to embark on a tour to Paris and London. In addition, tensions between Nureyev and Kirov's artistic director Konstantin Sergeyev, who was also the husband of Nureyev's former dance partner Natalia Dudinskaya, were also on the rise. The French organisers begged Nureyev dance in Leningrad in 1960, and he was allowed to go.

Oliver Merlin in Le Monde wrote,

Nureyev was seen to have broken the rules regarding mingling with foreigners and reportedly frequented gay bars in Paris, angering the Kirov's leadership and KGB agents who were attending him. The KGB wanted to return him to the Soviet Union. Sergeyev took Nureyev away from his le bourne Airport in Paris on June 16, 1961, rather than moving to London with the remainder of the company. Nureyev's behavior became suspicious and refused.

His mother was extremely ill and he had to go home right away to see her. Nureyev reacted angrily, fearing that he was likely to be jailed on return to the USSR. Nureyev escaped his KGB minders and requested asylum with the support of French police and a Paris socialite friend, Clara Saint, the son of the French Minister of Culture, André Malraux. Sergeyev and the KGB attempted to dissuade him, but he chose to remain in Paris.

He was signed by the Grand Ballet du Cuevas within a week and appeared in Nina Vyroubova's The Sleeping Beauty.

Erik Bruhn, soloist at the Royal Danish Ballet, met him on a tour of Denmark. Bruhn was his lover, his closest friend, and protector until his death in 1986. In December 1962, Bruhn and her sister Bruhn appeared as guest dancers with the newly formed Australian Ballet at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney.

Nureyev's father, mother, and dance instructor Pushkin were all sent letters by Soviet authorities, who begged him to return, but without effect. Although he petitioned for years to visit his mother, he was not allowed to do so until 1987, when his mother died and Mikhail Gorbachev accepted the tour.

He was invited to dance the role of James in La Sylphide with the Mariinsky Ballet in Leningrad in 1989. On the trip, he had the opportunity to visit many of the teachers and colleagues he had not seen since his defection.

Dame Ninette de Valois negotiated a deal with The Royal Ballet as Principal Dancer. During his time at the company, however, many observers became outraged as Nureyev made significant improvements to Swan Lake and Giselle's productions. Nureyev stayed with the Royal Ballet until 1970, when he was promoted to Principal Guest Artist, allowing him to concentrate on his growing schedule of international guest appearances and tours. He continued to appear regularly with The Royal Ballet before committing his future to the Paris Opera Ballet in the 1980s.

Nureyev's first appearance with Prima Ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn was in a ballet matinée hosted by The Royal Ballet: Giselle, 21 February 1962. The performance was held in aid of the Royal Academy of Dance, a classical ballet teaching organization of which she was president. He danced Poème Tragique, a solo choreographed by Frederick Ashton, and the Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake. They were so grateful that Fonteyn and Nureyev were able to form a long-term partnership. In 1965, Romeo and Juliet became the company's first Romeo and Juliet. Fans of the pair will give up their plans to make confetti that would be joyously served to the dancers. Nureyev and Fonteyn could receive up to 20 curtain calls.

Fonteyn and Nureyev, who had appeared in San Francisco, were arrested on nearby rooftops on July 11, 1967, after fleeing during a police raid on a house in the Haight-Ashbury district. They were bailed out, and allegations of causing chaos and visiting a place where marijuana was used were dismissed later that day due to a lack of reliable evidence.

Nureyev's long-term association with the National Ballet of Canada began with numerous appearances in North America, with him appearing as a guest artist on several occasions. He produced a spectacular new production of Sleeping Beauty for the company in 1972, with his own additional choreography adding to Petipa's. After its initial run in Toronto, the production toured extensively in the United States and Canada, one performance of which was televised live and then released on film.

Nureyev is one of the National Ballet's most popular ballerinas, partnering with Veronica Tennant and Karen Kain the most often. Nureyev was an active participant in the American Ballet Theatre during the 1975-1975 revival of Le Corsaire with Gelsey Kirkland. With Cynthia Gregory, he resurrects Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Ramonda. In a pas des trois from the little-known August Bournonville ballet La Ventana, Gregory and Brun joined Nureyev.

Nureyev citizenship was granted in January 1982, bringing an end to more than 20 years of statelessness. He was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1983, where he performed and marketed younger dancers as well as directing. He stayed on as a dancer and chief choreographer until 1989. Sylvie Guillem, Isabelle Guérin, Manuel Legris, Elisabeth Maurin, Élisabeth Platel, Charles Jude, and Monique Loudières were among the dancers he mentored.

His artistic directorship of the Paris Opera Ballet was a huge success, lifting the company out of a difficult period. His The Sleeping Beauty is still on the menu, with his protégé Manuel Legris in the lead.

Despite advancing illness into the end of his life, he continued to produce new interpretations of old standbys and commissioning some of the most ground-breaking choreographic works of his time. Romeo and Juliet, his own, was a hit. He was working on a final production of La Bayadère closely following the Mariinsky Ballet version in which he appeared as a young man.

Nureyev took no interest when AIDS first appeared in France's news around 1982. In 1984, the dancer was positive for HIV, but for many years, he denied that anything was wrong with his health. However, his declining capabilities in the late 1980s disappointed his admirers who had cherished memories of his dazzling prowess and expertise. Nureyev's decline began in the summer of 1991 and the disease's final phase was evident in the spring of 1992.

In March 1992, living with advanced AIDS, he returned to Kazan and appeared as a conductor in front of the audience at Musa Celelt Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, which now hosts the Rudolf Nureyev Festival in Tatarstan. With a high fever, he was admitted to Levallois-Perpetual Secours, a suburb northwest of Paris, and was treated for pericarditis, or an inflammation of the membranous sac around the heart. At the time, he was inspired by the fear that he'd fulfill an invitation to perform Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet at an American Ballet Theatre benefit on May 6th, 1992 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. He did so and was elated at the reception.

Nureyev's signs of pericarditis returned in July 1992, but she was able to forswear further therapy. On October 8, 1992, he appeared in a new production of La Bayadère choreographed by Marius Petipa for the Paris Opera Ballet, his last public appearance was on October 8, 1992. Nureyev managed to obtain a photocopy of Ludwig Minkus' original score while in Russia in 1989. The ballet was a personal triumph, but the fragility of his illness was evident. On stage with France's highest cultural award, Jack Lang, delivered him that evening.

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