#articlenureyev

NUREYEV

 Who is he? What is he like as a person?

What will happen to him away from the security of the Kirov Ballet?

 INTRODUCTION

The Russian dancer who has joined the dance world of the West is stubborn in his determination, temperamental in his range of emotion, and electric in his effect on an audience.

When Rudolf Nureyev was in New York recently we spoke to him briefly — long enough to confirm the reports of his sharp wit and great intensity. Speaking excel­lent English, he said at that time that he hopes to make the United States his headquarters. But that he is not yet cer­tain if and when that can be arranged.

Just before presstime it was announced by Columbia Artists Management that Nureyev will make his U.S. stage debut with Ruth Page’s Chicago Opera Ballet on March 10 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other commitments, including a re­appearance on the Bell Telephone Hour, are possibilities.

In August ’61, Dance Magazine pre­sented a photographic study of Rudolf Nureyev a week after his defection from the Kirov Ballet. The photos revealed the special qualities of this remarkable per­former, as well as the unmistakably de­cadent atmosphere of the ballet company that had won him to perform at a salary of $2,000 a week. On the pages that fol­low, we acquaint you more extensively with the recent activities and thoughts of Nureyev, and with the reactions of others who have followed him closely since last June 16, the day when he asked asylum in France rather than return to Leningrad.

The article by Alexander Bland, dance critic of London’s “Observer,” gives us an English view. The interview that follows it, written by Franz Spelman for “Show Business Illustrated” (by whose kind per­mission we here present it), was made in Frankfort, Germany, where Nureyev, on brief leave from the Marquis de Cuevas company, had gone to tape a 20-minute TV show (for which he was paid $4,000). The dancer’s frank, disarming, and bril­liantly clear answers to the interviewer's questions are in themselves a memorable experience.    

 Lydia Joel

NUREYEV IN ENGLAND

By Alexander Bland

 I first met Rudolf Nureyev in Dame Margot Fonteyn s drawing room. It was seven o’clock. Dame Margot had left for the theatre; she was dancing Giselle that evening. My wife and I sat alone among the gilt embassy furniture (Dame Margot’s husband is Panamanian ambassador in London) waiting anxiously for the young Russian dancer who was staying with her. He had just arrived on a secret visit to England, and we were to smuggle him into Covent Garden for his first sight of the Royal Ballet. The performance was at half past seven. At five past seven there was still no sign of him.

Then the door opened and a young man stood there blinking. He was wearing a dark sports shirt and tight trousers, and had a gypsy look with his tousled hair and hollow cheeks. How was this strange figure to be slipped unobtrusively into the formal dressed-up audience at Covent Gar­den? Were these all the clothes he had?

He bowed courteously and smiled. “I am sorry,” he said. “I was asleep.” Calmly he disappeared. Five minutes later he entered again, a totally different person — slim, smooth and handsome in a well-cut dark suit. “I am ready,” he said, grinning like a child. We reached the theatre as the curtain went up.

In those first few minutes I had caught a glimpse of Nureyev’s character and per­ceived his astonishing power to change.

Nureyev had jumped into the world headlines last June when, after being faced with the threat of an ignoble return to Russia, he broke away on a Paris air­field and sought asylum in the West. He bad been the big success of the Lenin­grad Kirov Ballet Company’s Paris season; but in his spare time he had insisted on going round by himself, making his own friends, shirking the organized tours and generally failing to toe the line out of working hours. When it came to the pros­pect of similar behavior in London where matters might be even worse, as he (Over p. 42) had taught himself to speak the language – the  authorities drew the line. As the rest of the company lined up to board the plane for England, two men suddenly appeared at Nureyev's side and started to steer him towards another plane with a different destination — Russia. It was a moment for a quick, desperate choice. He chose the West.

[FOTO] IN THE USA: On Jan. 19, without fan­fare, Rudolf Nureyev appeared on NBC-TV’s Bell Telephone Hour and evoked a decidedly positive reaction from a national  audience (see p. 23 for more).

[FOTO] Above and opposite: The ex-Kirov Bal­let dancer and Maria Tallchief in the pas de deux from Bournonville’s “Flower Festival at Gensanoas” taught to them by Erik Bruhn. Below, off-stage during dress rehearsal at NBC’s Brooklyn stu­dio: Bruhn, Tallchief, Nureyev.

The souvenir booklet prepared by the Russians to introduce the Kirov Ballet to non-Russian audiences last summer origin­ally contained a paragraph (it was hastily expunged after Nureyev's defection) that revealed something of the background of this drama. To begin with it showed just how high he was rated. "A great dancer with a brilliant future" was the actual way he was described  — no empty praise in a country where standards are higher than anywhere in the world. But a curious sentence followed — particularly curious in a publication which was frankly intend­ed as a piece of publicity. Nureyev had so far failed, the writer complained, to learn “that the leading role is after all only part of the artistic whole to which even the most gifted premier danseur must sub­ordinate his individuality.”

Nureyev has the kind of individuality which is not easily subordinated, as any­body who has met him or seen him dance knows. It is this, in fact, which is his strength as an artist, making him some­thing more than just an exceptionally gift­ed performer. Like the great names in all the arts he emanates a mysterious, strong­ly personal vitality, so that even his small­est movements seem to be expressing some­thing big. Dance experts may praise his enormous leaps, his extraordinary turns and beats, his combination of softness and strength. But what lends him that extra something that appeals instantly to the most untrained eye is the potent dramatic quality we vulgarly know as “glamour.”

He is a quiet young man of 23, with something of the alert, elegant charm of Balanchine and the same suggestion of a wild catlike nature beneath a civilized manner. You might mistake him for a Parisian art student, though his slanting eyes and high cheekbones — reminiscent of Nijinsky’s — betray his Tartar origin.

His parents are poor country-folk in a remote village near Ufa beyond the Ural mountains, three days’ journey from Le­ningrad. Like many youngsters he joined a folk dance troupe, and was soon perform­ing in the local town, Ufa. He was 17 — middle-age for a ballet student — before he went to Leningrad with the folk dance group and was invited to stay.

He set to work in Kirov Ballet School, with such success that within three years he was appearing with the company, and almost immediately in leading roles, From the start he insisted on his own methods. He entrusted himself to a single teacher, by the name of Pushkin, and rehearsed only with him. In the unhurried, commer­cially untroubled world of Russian bullet a year may go by in the preparation of a single role, and weeks to perfect a single performance. Nureyev likes to sink him­self in a role like a Method actor. His foppish, slightly condescending interpre­tation  of the Prince in the Kirov Sleeping Вeauty was a fine example. This approach fan be worked out only in private, not at committee meetings or group discussions, which he heartily dislikes.

Though he clearly suffers from his total isolation (he ejected himself into the western world with no plans, and fifty francs in his pocket), he seems outwardly quite undismayed. He exudes the courage — both moral and physical — which comes from long years of independence and lone­lines, together (as he frankly admits) with a strong dose of obstinate egoism. “I do not like to be pressed,” he says.

He was not out of work long. Within a few weeks he had joined the de Cuevas Ballet Company and was dancing classical parts to enthusiastic audiences. With that company he performed in many parts of France, in Germany, Italy and Israel. In November he made his debut in London, at a gala matinee organized by Dame Margot Fonteyn, stopping the show with his “Black Swan” solo.

In December he joined Sonia Arova, Rosella Hightower, and Erik Bruhn in concert performances in Cannes and in Paris. On that first secret visit to England, he stayed five days with Dame Margot and discussed details of the London debut. The English ballerina loves a plot (she was imprisoned in Panama several years ago when her husband Senor de Arias was implicated in an attempted rising). Nur­eyev went unrecognized to performances at Covent Garden — I was astonished to find that the names of even the junior soloists were familiar to him from his study of ballet magazines — and he even attended a company class of the Royal Ballet, where Dame Margot introduced him by casually asking if a friend of hers, might join in at the class. His extraordi­nary feats soon had the other students ap­plauding; but with characteristic British reticence they discreetly refrained from asking his name.

Off stage Rudolf Nureyev is modest, elegant, courteous and unpunctual. He  moves with fastidious deliberation. There is something formidable behind his inscrutable gentle manner, and his physique, slight from a distance, is tough when you get close. His normal expression is one of faint amusement, and when over his shyness he laughs easily.

He has bright watchful eyes, and not much misses him. He found his way around London by bus from the first day he way there, and has definite views on what he has seen, which he expresses with a pleasing candor. He still thinks Russian ballet training the best in the world (and who would disagree?), but he admires very many things in the West. He finds some excellent things in the de Cuevas version of Sleeping Beauty in which he had been dancing; at Covent Garden he par­ticularly admired Ashton's Symphonic Variations; he venerates the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn; and of all the choreography he has seen he rates that of Balanchine highest, though he much enjoyed Jerome Robbins’ N.Y.Export: Opus Jazz, which he saw in Paris.

One thing is certain. Nureyev is not just one more dancer of first-class talent. He is something much more rare. He is one of those strange, haunted artists that ballet throws up from time to time, danc­ers through whom some intense, urgent message seems to be passing. Such indi­vidual performers are not always the easi­est to fit into organizations, or even into society. But what they have to contribute is unique.

 END

 NUREYEV ANSWERS QUESTIONS

 By Franz Spelman

FS: Had you been planning to make this bolt for freedom, or did you just jump at the spur of the moment?

NUREYEV: What do you mean — freedom? And what do you mean by bolt? I didn't plan. I jumped. Suddenly I felt that things had been closing around me. But, mind you, I never had any politics in mind. Politics mean nothing to me. And I myself mean nothing to me. All I felt at that moment was that there might have been some danger that I couldn't dance any more — or at least not as much as I wanted. So I jumped to this side where I felt I still would be able to dance. Perhaps I was wrong. I’m not sure yet.

 FS: Didn't you get enough opportunities in Leningrad?

NUREYEV: I didn't think so personally. Perhaps it is unjust to say this. I don t know. Perhaps I didn’t like the fact that, in the Kirov Theater. I was just a cog in an enormous, slow-moving organization. Sure, it's a wonderful body as far as training, teaching and the performances themselves are concerned. But everything is so slow.

 FS: Didn't you have quite я career there al­ready? When you did “La Bayadere,” in Paris, everyone believed that you were the featured star of the show.

NUREYEV:  This might have looked so in Paris. In Leningrad  I was just one of the 10 solo dancers, and one of the youngest at that. In Russia no one attains anything until he is well in the middle of his thirties. It may be that I'm too impatient. But I felt it was unbearable that I would have to wait for another 15 years until I was given all the opportunities, before I could be myself, before I could dance more than two to three times each month. I’ve felt like someone suffocating for too long.

 FS: Do you think that your career will run more smoothly in the West?

NUREYEV:  Well, at least this flashed through my mind when I ran for it. I already had a conception of what I could expect here before this. But I also knew that matters would be far from easy, and that much would depend upon me. Nothing has happened in the past few weeks to make me change my views.

 FS: Why have you revealed so little about your background?

NUREYEV:   Above all, in Russia we are just not accustomed to people putting their noses into one’s private life. Only the secret police does this, and it isn’t up to me to judge whether they are right or wrong in doing so. It should be enough if you judge me from my work on the stage. It shouldn't really matter whether, in my private life. I prefer vodka to tea, whether I'm a single child or have 20 brothers, or whether my father was a mem­ber of the Council of Ministers or a habitual drunk hack in the country. Besides, if I tell too much about my family and friends, matters might grow unnecessarily uncomfortable for them - especially if the press continues to distort what I say.

  [FOTO] Those who have become acquainted with Nureyev personally are struck by his many-faceted personality, as reflected by the photos above.

 [FOTO] IN ENGLAND: Early last fall, as house guest of Mme Roberto de Arias (also known as Dame Margot and as Margot Fonteyn), wife of Panama's Ambassador to England, Nureyev became acquainted with the English dance scene. On Nor. 2 he appeared at the Charity Data Matinee (See Dec, ’61 issue, p, 38), causing great excitement among England's balletomanes. He is currently in England again, following his U.S. TV appearance, to dance Albrecht to Miss Fonteyn’s Giselle with the Royal Ballet on Feb. 21, March l and 6.

 FS: Couldn’t  you tell us something about your background?

NUREYEV:   All right, here are a few facts about my life. I’m an East Siberian, and I've some Tartar ancestry. There is noth­ing had in having Tartar ancestry, espe­cially for a dancer. I was born in a small village the name doesn't matter - near Irkutsk, on Lake Baikal. My father taught me folk dancing when I was very young.

I then took up with a local group, and this is where my bаllet training began. It was a fine group, and so it was sent to Leningrad to perform, seven years ago. We played the Kirov Theater, and this is where Sergeyev - their bullet master saw me first. He immediately asked me whether I wanted to remain there. This was exactly what I wanted him to suggest, because that was why I came. I'd wanted to become a ballet dancer from the day I tried my first dance step. In Russia it goes like that. Before I came to Lenin­grad. I had seen the Kirov and the Bol­shoi in the flesh, in the movies, on TV, and I had read everything about them I could lay my hands on. I also knew then that I didn't care to go to the Bolshoi. That’s too showy and vulgar.

 FS: You make it sound easy.

NUREYEV:   Don’t believe it was simple. I was a latecomer. A boor and a latecomer. First, I had to go to school, I was there a much shorter time than most of my colleagues. There was so much I didn't know, and also there was a lot I did better than anyone else. I made no friends. After I graduated, I always felt myself surrounded by people who didn’t want to let me go through to the top. In those four years, my entire stage repertory consisted only of seven parts. I do hope that now I will find a broader field.

 FS: Aren’t you afraid of reprisals?

NUREYEV: Why should I be? I'm not important. And I’m not an enemy of the Soviet Union. I’ve told all this to the men of the Soviet Embassy in Paris. All one can blame me for is having taken premature advantage of the greater artistic freedom which I believe, ultimately, will be inevitable in the Soviet Union, too. There is a change of generations coming in the artistic world. Right now, the cul­tural reins are still in the hands of the people who cling to the theories of the past. But the cleavage between the young and old is growing. I just happened to be more impatient than the rest.

 FS: Are you losing many privileges?

NUREYEV: Yes and no. Not financial. I never cared for money anyway. In Russia I made 2000 rubles a month, which is far less than the $8000 I rejected when I de­cided not to become a permanent member of the Cuevas Ballet. Yet, if I was look­ing for security alone, I would have been wiser to remain in Russia. Even though I didn't belong to that group of top artists in Russia who have everything, I had just as much as I wanted - a nice small apart­ment and a good phonograph to play my records. Here, in the West, I feel I’m going to ask for as much money as I can obtain because the amount of money one receives is what decides one’s worth.

 FS: What do you think of the West, now that you have been here for a while?

NUREYEV: It is still far too early to make a judgment. What I've seen of France I didn't like very much. I didn’t like the way in which I was dished up as a sensation, and I resented the public curiosity about everything concerning my person.

Above all, I didn’t like the way the Cuevas people dressed me up like a Christmas tree -  all bangles and beads. On the other hand, I’ve felt considerably calmer since coming to Germany. People were curious, too. But after they had a glance, they let me work.

 FS: How would you define the difference between Russia and Western Europe?

NUREYEV: The West isn’t as separated from the Russian mind as one might as­sume. In the provincial parts, yes. But certainly not in Leningrad. This isn’t perhaps as valid for Moscow. We have a saying that the Muscovites are too con­cerned with looking at the navels of their inflated stomachs to see anything else.

But in Leningrad the presence of the West is never absent. It oozes through in many channels: the radio, visitors, a thousand other things. [p71] In Russia, art is taken far more seriously, the artists command more respect. Audiences are better in Russia. For them, the ballet is a major experience in their lives  - or a major escape, if you want to put it this way. In Europe, though, art still remains very much the privilege of the wealthy. But this, despite all the flippancy and the amateurishness and the commercial exploitation, is compensated for by the liberties which are offered. In Russia, with all the opportunities given to concentrate on one's work, the real creative person is ultimately bound to arrive at a position where he just can’t develop further. This is perhaps the ad­vantage of the West which counts most.

 FS: Can you provide a sample of such Western achievements?

NUREYEV: I believe that much of what emerges from America in painting, liter­ature which has always intrigued me - and in music - especially jazz - is a step ahead. And of course there are the innovations in the dance. I admire Jerome Robbins. I saw If West Side Story and I thought it was marvelous. I saw his Opus Jazz and I felt that this would be the kind of choreographic theme which I would like to approach myself. Of course, I also have some criticisms. With Jerome Rob­bins I have an important objection, and it may seem funny that it comes from a Russian. But I do feel that the one thing wrong with his work is that his choreo­graphy tends to be too abstract, too collec­tive. Everything tends to negleet or to overpower the individual dancer. This is what always was done at the Kirov Theater, too.

 FS: What are your plans for the future?

NUREYEV: I’m on my way to see the people of the Danish Ballet. Later on I shall go to London. From there, I hope to go to New York. Of course I would like to work under a man like Balanchine. And l cer­tainly would like to appear at Covent Garden. But I don't want to go on any­where in the circumstances which existed in Paris. I don't want to be considered as a freak, or as a curiosity. I want to retain my own dancer's identity. But now I'm aiming for it: my own identity - as a dancer, and later on as a choreographer and teacher - even if this would mean forming my own group.

 FS: What would happen if you fail to achieve your identity?

NUREYEV: Frankly speaking I haven't thought about this. The West and I have given each other a chance. If we don't succeed, I may – perhaps - go back.

 END