Nureyev: The Life

Nureyev: The Life
- Nureyev. The life
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, â€œcrashing the gatesâ€ of modern dance, iconoclastically updating the most hallowed classics, and making dance history by partnering Englandâ€™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 BÃ©jart, Roland Petit--his main motive, he claimed, for having left the Kirov. But Nureyev also made it his mission to stage Russiaâ€™s full-length masterpieces in the West. His highly personal productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, and La BayadÃ¨re are the mainstays of the Paris OpÃ©ra Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to young protÃ©gÃ©s 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 Nureyevâ€™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 OpÃ©ra 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 Nureyevâ€™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.
Country USA
Manufacturer Pantheon
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2007-10-02
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9780375405136

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Pantheon
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2007-10-02
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9780375405136

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