Within two years
Nureyev was one of Russia's best-known dancers, in a country which
revered the ballet and made national heroes of its stars. Soon he
enjoyed the rare privilege of travel outside the Soviet Union, when
he danced in Vienna at the International Youth Festival. Not long
after, for disciplinary reasons, he was told he would not be allowed
to go abroad again. He was condemned to tours of the Russian provinces.
In 1961 Nureyev's luck turned. The Kirov's leading male dancer,
Konstantin Sergeyev, was injured, and at the last minute Nureyev
was chosen to replace him in a performance in Paris. In Paris, his
performances electrified audiences and critics. But Nureyev broke
the rules about mingling with foreigners, and was told he would
be sent home. Realising he would probably not be allowed abroad
again, on 17 June at Charles De Gaulle International Airport, he
defected. He did not see Russia again until 1989, when he visited
at the special invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Within a week Nureyev had been signed up by the Grand Ballet du
Marquis de Cuevas and was performing The Sleeping Beauty with Nina
Vyroubova. Nureyev was an instant celebrity in the west. His dramatic
defection, his outstanding skills, and, it must be said, his astonishing
good looks, made him an international star. This gave him the power
to decide where and with whom he would dance.
Nureyev's defection also gave him the personal freedom he had been
denied in the Soviet Union. On a tour of Denmark he met Erik Bruhn,
another dancer ten years his senior, who became his lover, his closest
friend and his protector (mainly from his own folly) for many years.
The relationship was a stormy one, for Nureyev was highly sexually
promiscuous. Bruhn was director of the Royal Swedish Ballet from
1967 to 1972 and Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada
from 1983 until his death in 1986. One of the men that Nureyev is
said to have had an affair with was movie star Anthony Perkins.
At the same time Nureyev met Margot Fonteyn, the leader British
dancer of her time, with whom he formed a professional partnership
and a close friendship. She brought him to the Royal Ballet in London,
which remained his base during the rest of his dancing career. Together
Nureyev and Fonteyn forever transformed such cornerstone ballets
as Swan Lake and Giselle.
Nureyev was immediately in demand by film-makers, and in 1962 he
made his screen debut in a film version of Les Sylphides. In 1976
he played Rudolph Valentino in Ken Russell's film, but he had neither
the talent nor the temperament for a serious acting career. He branched
into modern dance with the Dutch National Ballet in 1968. In 1972
Robert Helpmann invited him to tour Australia with his own production
of Don Quixote, his directorial debut.
During the 1970s, Nureyev appeared in several movies and toured
the United States in a revival of the Broadway musical The King
and I. His guest appearance on the then-struggling television series
The Muppet Show is credited for boosting the series to worldwide
success. In 1982 he became a naturalized Austrian. In 1983 he was
appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet, where as well as directing
he continued to dance and to promote younger dancers. Despite advancing
illness towards the end of his tenure, he worked tirelessly, staging
new versions of old standbys and commissioning some of the most
groundbreaking choreographic works of his time.
Nureyev's talent, beauty, and charm caused him to be forgiven many
things, but stardom did little to improve his temperament. He was
notoriously impulsive and did not have much patience with rules,
limitations and hierarchical order. Some saw this as unreliability
and rudeness to those he worked with. He mixed with Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis, Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, and developed a reputation
for intolerance of non-celebrities, but he kept up old friendships
in and outside the ballet world for decades, being a loyal and generous
friend. His interests were widespread and he loved to discuss all
kinds of subjects, showing an amazing wealth of knowledge in many
fields. By the end of the 1970s he moved into his 40s and faced
the inevitable decline of his amazing physical prowess, he unfortunately
continued to tackle the big classical roles for far too long, and
his rather undistinguished performances in the late 1980s disappointed
many of his admirers.
Nureyev's influence on the world of ballet changed especially the
perception of male dancers; in his own productions of the classics
the male roles got much more choreography than in earlier productions.
The second very important influence was his crossing the borders
between classical ballet and modern dance by dancing both, although
having been trained as a classical dancer. Today it is absolutely
normal for dancers to get training in both styles but Nureyev was
the one who started this and is was a sensation and even much criticized
in his days.
When AIDS appeared in France in about 1982 (as well as everywhere
else), Nureyev, like many French homosexual men, took little notice.
He presumably contracted HIV at some point in the early 1980s. For
several years he simply denied that anything was wrong with his
health: when, in about 1990, he became undeniably ill, he pretended
he had several other ailments. He refused whatever treatments were
available at that time.
Eventually, however, he had to face the fact that he was dying.
He won back the admiration of many of his detractors by his courage
during this period. The loss of his looks pained him, but he continued
to struggle through public appearances. At his last appearance,
at a 1992 production of The Bayadère at the Palais Garnier,
Nureyev received an emotional standing ovation from the audience.
The French Culture Minister, Jack Lang, presented him with France's
highest cultural award, the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Artes et Lettres.
He died in Paris, France, a few months later, aged 54.
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