Rudolf Nureyev had it all: beauty, genius, charm, passion,
and sex appeal. No other dancer of our time has generated
the same excitement, for both men and women, on or off the
stage. With Nureyev: The Life, Julie Kavanagh shows how his
intense drive and passion for dance propelled him from a
poor, Tatar-peasant background to the most sophisticated
circles of London, Paris, and New York. His dramatic
defection to the West in l961 created a Cold War crisis and
made him an instant celebrity, but this was just the
beginning. Nureyev spent the rest of his life breaking
barriers: reinventing male technique, “crashing the gates”
of modern dance, iconoclastically updating the most hallowed
classics, and making dance history by partnering England’s
prima ballerina assoluta, Margot Fonteyn--a woman twice his
age. He danced for almost all the major
choreographers--Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Kenneth
MacMillan, Jerome Robbins, Maurice Béjart, Roland Petit--his
main motive, he claimed, for having left the Kirov. But
Nureyev also made it his mission to stage Russia’s
full-length masterpieces in the West. His highly personal
productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo
and Juliet, and La Bayadère are the mainstays of the Paris
Opéra Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational
director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to
young protégés across the globe--from Karen Kain and Monica
Mason (now directors themselves), to Sylvie Guillem,
Elisabeth Platel, Laurent Hilaire and Kenneth Greve.
Sex, as much as dance, was a driving force for Nureyev. From
his first secret liaison in Russia to his tempestuous
relationship with the great Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, we see
not only Nureyev’s notorious homosexual history unfold, but
also learn of his profound effect on women--whether a
Sixties wild child or Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill or
the aging Marlene Dietrich. Among the first victims of AIDS,
Nureyev was diagnosed HIV positive in 1984 but defied the
disease for nearly a decade, dancing, directing the Paris
Opéra Ballet, choreographing, and even beginning a new
career as a conductor. Still making plans for the future,
Nureyev finally succumbed and died in January l993.
Drawing on previously undisclosed letters, diaries,
home-movie footage, interviews with Nureyev’s inner circle,
and her own dance background, Julie Kavanagh gives the most
intimate, revealing, and dramatic picture we have ever had
of this dazzling, complex figure.