Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev[a] (17 March 1938 – 6 January 1993) was a Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer. Nureyev is regarded by some as the greatest male ballet dancer of his generation.[1][2][3][4]
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Khametovich and the family name is Nureyev.
Rudolf Nureyev
6 January 1993 (aged 54)
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery, Paris, France
- Soviet Union (until 1961)
- Stateless (1961–1982)
- Austria (from 1982)
- Dancer
- choreographer
- ballet director
1958–1992
173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
- Erik Bruhn (1961–1986)
- Robert Tracy (1978–1993)
Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk, Siberia, Soviet Union, to a 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 Leningrad. He defected from the Soviet Union to the West in 1961, despite KGB efforts to stop him.[5] 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. Nureyev was also a choreographer serving as the chief choreographer of the Paris Opera Ballet. He produced his own interpretations of numerous classical works,[6] including Swan Lake, Giselle and La Bayadère.[7]
Early life[edit]
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.[8] He was raised as the only son with three older sisters in a Tatar Muslim family.[9][10][11] 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".[12]
Career[edit]
Education at Vaganova Academy[edit]
When his mother took Nureyev and his sisters into a performance of the ballet Song of the Cranes, he fell in love with dance.[8] As a child, he was encouraged to dance in Bashkir folk performances and his precocity was soon noticed by teachers who encouraged him to train in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). On a tour stop in Moscow with a local ballet company, Nureyev auditioned for the Bolshoi ballet company and was accepted. However, he felt that the Mariinsky Ballet school was the best, so he left the local touring company and bought a ticket to Leningrad.[13]
Owing to the disruption of Soviet cultural life caused by World War II, Nureyev was unable to enroll in a major ballet school until 1955, aged 17, when he was accepted by the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet of Leningrad, the associate school of the Mariinsky Ballet. The ballet master Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin took an interest in him professionally and allowed Nureyev to live with him and his wife.[14]
Principal with Kirov Ballet[edit]
Upon his graduation in 1958, Nureyev joined the Kirov Ballet (now Mariinsky). He moved immediately beyond the corps level, and was given solo roles as a principal dancer from the outset.[2] Nureyev regularly partnered with Natalia Dudinskaya, the company's senior ballerina and wife of its director, Konstantin Sergeyev. Dudinskaya, who was 26 years his senior, first chose him as her partner[14] in the ballet Laurencia.
Before long, Nureyev became one of the Soviet Union's best-known dancers. From 1958 to 1961, in his three years with the Kirov, he danced 15 roles, usually opposite his partner, Ninel Kurgapkina, with whom he was very well paired, although she was almost a decade older than he was.[15] Nureyev and Kurgapkina were invited to dance at a gathering at Khrushchev's dacha,[14] and in 1959 they were allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union, dancing in Vienna at the International Youth Festival. Not long after, he was told by the Ministry of Culture that he would not be allowed to go abroad again.[16] In one memorable incident, Nureyev interrupted a performance of Don Quixote for 40 minutes, insisting on dancing in tights and not in the customary trousers. He relented in the end, but his preferred dress code was adopted in later performances.[14]
Dance partnerships[edit]
Yvette Chauviré of the Paris Opera Ballet often danced with Nureyev; he described her as a "legend".[51] (Chauviré attended his funeral with French dancer and actress Leslie Caron.)[52]
At the Royal Ballet, Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn became long-standing dance partners. Nureyev once said of Fonteyn, who was 19 years older than him, that they danced with "one body, one soul". Together Nureyev and Fonteyn premiered Sir Frederick Ashton's ballet Marguerite and Armand, a ballet danced to Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor, which became their signature piece. Kenneth MacMillan was forced to allow them to premiere his Romeo and Juliet, which was intended for two other dancers, Lynn Seymour and Christopher Gable.[53] Films exist of their partnership in Les Sylphides, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and other roles. They continued to dance together for many years after Nureyev's departure from the Royal Ballet. Their last performance together was in Baroque Pas de Trois on 16 September 1988 when Fonteyn was 69, Nureyev was aged 50, with Carla Fracci, aged 52, also starring.
He celebrated another long-time partnership with Eva Evdokimova. They first appeared together in La Sylphide (1971) and in 1975 he selected her as his Sleeping Beauty in his staging for London Festival Ballet. Evdokimova remained his partner of choice for many guest appearances and tours across the globe with "Nureyev and Friends" for more than fifteen years.
During his American stage debut in 1962, Nureyev also partnered with Sonia Arova at New York City's Brooklyn Academy of Music. In collaboration with Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet, they performed the grand pas de deux from Don Quixote.[54][55][56][57]