Rudolf Nureyev
Rudolf Xämät ulı Nuriev (near Irkutsk, March 17, 1938- Levallois-Perret, January 6, 1993), also known as Rudolf Nureyev was a Soviet-born classical dancer, considered by many critics to be one of the greatest dancers of the 20th century.[citation needed]
Biography
He was born on a train near Irkutsk while his mother was on a journey from Siberia to Vladivostok, where his father, a Red Army commissar of Tatar origin, was stationed. He grew up in a town near Ufa, in the Republic of Bashkortostan. As a child he was encouraged to dance Bashkir folk dances, being an early outstanding dancer.
Due to the disruption of Soviet multicultural life caused by World War II, Nureyev was unable to begin his studies at a good ballet school until 1955, when he was sent to the Vaganova Ballet Academy of the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. Here he was a disciple of the famous ballet master Aleksandr Pushkin. Despite his late start, he was soon recognized as the most talented dancer the school had seen in years.[citation needed]
Within two years Nureyev was already one of the best-known Soviet dancers, in a country where ballet was revered and where dancers were made national heroes. Shortly after he already enjoyed the exceptional privilege of being able to travel outside the Soviet Union, like when he danced in Vienna at the International Youth Festival. Nureyev was regularly associated with Natalia Dudinskaya, the company's principal dancer and wife of the dancer Konstantin Sergeev, who was 26 years his senior, first choosing him as his partner in the ballet Laurentia .
In 1961, his life changed. The main dancer of the Kirov, Konstantin Sergeyev, suffered an accident and Nureyev was chosen to replace him in Paris. There, his performance impressed the public and critics. But Nureyev broke the rules when it came to associating with foreigners. Realizing that he would probably not be allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union after this occasion, on June 17 of that year he requested political asylum while at the Paris-Le Bourget airport.
A week later, Nureyev had already been hired by the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas and was performing in Sleeping Beauty with Nina Vyroubova. Nureyev became an instant celebrity in the West. His dramatic defection and his exceptional talent made him an international star. This gave him the power to decide where and with whom to dance.[citation needed ] During a tour in Denmark he met Erik Bruhn, with whom he had an open romantic relationship.
At the same time, Nureyev met Margot Fonteyn, the leading British ballerina of his day, with whom he had a professional and friendly relationship. She introduced him to the Royal Ballet in London, which would become his base of operations for the rest of his artistic career.
Nureyev was immediately in demand by filmmakers, and in 1962 he made his film debut in a version of The Sylphs. In 1976 he played Rudolf Valentino in the Ken Russell film, but Nureyev had neither the talent nor the temperament to go into the movies. He started modern dance at the Netherlands National Ballet in 1968 and in 1972, Robert Helpmann invited him to tour Australia with his own production of Don Quixote, making his directorial debut there.
During the 1970s, Nureyev appeared in several feature films and toured the United States in a revival of the Broadway musical The King and I. His appearance on the then-struggling Muppets Show is widely considered to have propelled the show into an international success. In 1983, he was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet, where in addition to acting as director he also continued to dance. Despite his advanced illness towards the end of his tenure, he worked tirelessly producing some of the most revolutionary choreographic works of his day.
Nureyev's talent and charm earned him many pardons, but fame did not improve his temper. He was notoriously impulsive, temperamental, unreliable, and rude to those he worked with. Among those who he frequented, are characters such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Andy Warhol. At the end of the 70's, already past his 40 years of age, these ups and downs of character were accentuated, probably when realizing the decline of his physical strength.
When AIDS appeared in France around 1982, Nureyev, like many other French homosexuals, ignored the seriousness of the disease. He allegedly contracted HIV during the early 1980s. For several years he simply denied that he had any problems with his health. When, around 1990, his illness became evident, he blamed it on other health problems and refused to accept the treatments then available.[citation needed ]
Eventually having to come to terms with the fact that he was dying, he continued to appear publicly despite his worsening physical condition. In his last appearance, in 1992 at the Palais Garnier in Paris , Nureyev received a moving ovation from the audience. The French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, presented him with the greatest cultural trophy in France, the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. He died months later, at the age of 54, in the city of Paris.
She was buried a few days later in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery, on January 13, just twenty meters from the grave of the choreographer Serge Lifar. In this cemetery there are a large number of Russian exiles buried by what is considered the "Russian cemetery in Paris". These two dancers and choreographers have been the only artists from the so-called Russian ballet school to direct the ballet of the prestigious Paris Opera. The tomb was designed by his friend Ezio Frigerio. It is a mosaic that represents a kilim with great realism, which makes it one of the main attractions of this cemetery.