Nureyev : The Life (9780307807342)

by Kavanagh, Julie

  Erik’s contribution was a lighthearted Fantaisie about four young people meeting in a park, as well as plotless dances to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue, one section of which showed him and Rudolf re-creating the simultaneous practice work they had done in Copenhagen (and gave a male twist to the traditional Danish duet in which the ballerina and her partner dance identical choreography together). But as they worked on the Bach piece, the two men argued constantly, Rudolf criticizing Erik for what he regarded as his cavalier treatment of the music. Erik’s model was Bournonville, whose choreography goes on and off the beat, whereas Rudolf, who regarded Bach as sacred, believed that the steps should be set “squarely to the music without varying.” “It always ended up as a big battle,” said Rosella. “Being the eldest, I found myself taking over and organizing things: ‘Rudi, if you do this part, Erik can do that.… Stop arguing!’ ”

  The couple’s working relationship had become increasingly diabolical, “as if each existed to be a challenge to the other, and to fill the other with despair.” Intently studying Erik’s approach to a role, Rudolf once announced in Rosella’s hearing, “I’m going to dance that, and I’m going to dance it even better.” And if rehearsals were discordant, what took place afterward was “absolute pandemonium.” Not always the glacial figure he looked, Erik had a furious temper that was probably genetic (his sister Else was the victim of a deeply neurotic personality, and he remembered “long and violent quarrels” between his parents). His anger was lurking, mean, and caustic, whereas Rudolf’s tended to be more melodramatic and physical. “But once the Dane had had his whisky, and the Russian his vodka, it didn’t take much to set them off,” recalled Rosella. She would hear the next morning from Sonia, who shared their seafront apartment, how the pair had run through the rooms chasing each other with knives “as if wanting to end everything.”

  The prospect of rejoining the de Cuevas tour did little to improve Rudolf’s mood. He had told Yvette Chauviré, “I will not go to Venice for this Sleeping Beauty,” and although he arrived as expected, he was not even appeased by the city itself, snow-covered for the first time in years, its stucco facades and wrought ironwork all the more exquisite for being outlined in white. “I couldn’t stand it despite all that beauty.” His hotel was cheap, uncomfortable, and so poorly heated that he felt warmer outdoors. He was wearing his Russian fur hat when Ghislaine Thesmar met him crossing a bridge, and dismissed her comment on the snow by saying, “Of course it snows. I’m here.”

  With the Venice performances taking place during the festive season, Rudolf felt more foolishly like a Christmas tree than ever in his spun-sugar wig and tiara. Desperate to retain the purity of his Kirov schooling as well as his memories of its own Sleeping Beauty production, he had never attempted to understand the decorative aesthetic of the de Cuevas company. Raymundo, whose heightened sense of invention and imagination came from having worked with the surrealist painter Leonor Fini, had set out to create a private company with an atmosphere all its own—certainly nothing like that of the Paris Opéra—designing strange, dreamlike decors, costumes in the newest fabrics, and exaggerated, Kabuki-white makeup. “Raymundo was so aesthetic, he loved working with things like transparent nylon. He was never going to put the prince in velvet,” said Jacqueline de Ribes, who had been adored by the marquis for being what he considered the only aristocrat in Paris with a sense of fantasy. In this sophisticated European milieu, Leningrad’s maverick and modernist, insisting on wearing his own blond wig for Don Quixote and finding Raymundo’s ideas completely crazy, seemed exceedingly Soviet and old-fashioned. He was, they believed, a great artist, but not a man of taste. “It was too soon for Rudolf to be caught up in such phantasmagoric tra-la-la,” said Violette Verdy. “He wasn’t used to such extravaganza.” To make his point, Rudolf appeared onstage on his last night in Venice wearing his own black velvet costume. He had nothing to lose; his contract was at an end. And, by now, this was as much of a relief to his colleagues as to himself. “The atmosphere in the company was chilly too. I parted from it without many tears.”

  *Confronted by various conflicting accounts of Rudolf’s first night in London, I decided to base my narrative on Alexander Bland’s 1961 Observer profile, as well as on my own conversations with Maude Gosling—if only because this version seemed to me to be the most plausible. Rudolf cannot have gone that night to the Ballet Rambert’s Giselle, as his Autobiography claims: It was not in repertory in September. Margot Fonteyn, in her vivid description of their initial meeting, may well have confused the occasion in her mind with a subsequent London visit, as Maude is convinced that the ballerina had left for the theater by the time Rudolf arrived. Colette Clark’s memory of the day is also unclear, but in a letter of consolation to Maude after Rudolf’s death in January 1993, she wrote, “I was the first person to greet him on English soil (because he missed the car at the airport & so arrived late & Margot had to leave for another engagement!!).”

  *Fonteyn had always relished a plot. Two years earlier she had helped her husband and a ragtag band of Cuban Communists launch an abortive revolution in Panama (described in the press as one of “the funnier fiascos of recent history”).

  *During the course of interviews for a possible biography, Sonia Arova told the writer Anna-Marie Welch: “We never slept together because we were so young when we met and incredibly innocent. Our sex drive was sublimated by our love for this art form.”

  *The book would be published in February 1962, but the first of four extracts, “Ballon and the Bournonville Style,” appeared in Dancing Times in November 1961.

  *“I am God” declarations in Scriabin’s Swiss Notebook of 1905 are truncated into a single “I am.” (Faubion Bowers, The New Scriabin.)

  *The late Vadim Kiselev, not always a reliable source, insisted that Rudolf’s predilection for “the accidental people” started in Leningrad. “Of course it started here. He was very attracted to young Russians, blond, good bodies, and he had all kinds of contacts. He wasn’t very careful, but you can’t blame him for that. If he’d had a permanent romance with someone it would have been a great scandal.”

  *Although Scriabin deplored Isadora’s old-fashioned choice of music, he acknowledged that her liberated dance language, with its expression of symbolic gestures, was close in spirit to “the plastic magic of rhythms” that he admired in choreography. (Faubion Bowers, The New Scriabin.)

  *John Lanchbery, who orchestrated the Poème Tragique for the gala, delighted Rudolf by telling him of a theory he had heard, that the theme stated fortissimo on five trumpets in unison at the climax of the Poème de l’extase represented the composer in a state of erection. “The story goes that Scriabin used to excite himself with pornography while composing.”

  *A last-minute substitute for the Don Quixote duet advertised in the program “because we’d had much more success with it in Israel.”

  8 A CELESTIAL ACCIDENT

  Toward the end of December Rudolf received a letter from Teja, forwarded to him by Axel Mowitz.

  Sweet Rudik,

  Much time has passed since we last saw each other. I wanted to write to you long ago, but where could I find you? I’m sending this letter to a friend who will probably be able to trace you.

  Here in Leningrad a lot of people talk about you, but who can I trust? One says you are in England; one says you are crazy; one says you are in Paris.… Well—you know what sometimes they can say here. I, myself, think that you are now very devastated; you don’t know what to do. My advice is: don’t be afraid of truth. We all think that you’ll come back to us soon. What is the Kirov Theater without you? When I’m there and walk around during the intermissions, we often recall your dancing. Do you remember how we always worried before the performance?… There is no such worrying now. When I go and visit Pushkin, we often remember you. He and Xenia can’t believe that you’ve forgotten them. He has become much older recently. Why am I writing all this to you? I feel that you want to come back home, but are afraid. Why
should you be afraid? We all know why you did it—don’t think that nobody here understands you. We all know that you aren’t very guilty and we would take that into account. Of course, your situation in the theater wasn’t easy: the arguments you had about costumes, and when people disagreed with your innovations. But in art you always have to fight for the new—don’t give up so quickly. Our profession is linked to troubles, as Pushkin says in his novel The Captain’s Daughter.… Think about everything that I’ve written to you and don’t be afraid …

  We’re having winter in Leningrad. Everything is covered with snow like in a fairy tale, with the Neva freezing up. Everything stays as it always was … I don’t know what else to say to you. I hope you’ll be able to read my writing; two years here isn’t enough to learn Russian. Everybody is waiting for you here. Come!

  Many regards, I kiss you, your friend, Teja

  However affectionate and understanding its tone, this letter, as Teja would later tell Rudolf, was “all lies.” Earlier in December he had been contacted by a member of the East German secret police and told that an agent would be traveling to Leningrad to speak to him. The reason was the letter he had written Rudolf that summer which had been intercepted by the KGB and passed on to the Stasi. “As the KGB has invested a lot of work into persuading the dancer to return, the informer was asked to talk to Kremke to prevent further warnings, otherwise all their efforts would be in vain.”

  On December 13 Teja met the Stasi agent in his hotel room. To the first question, asking if he knew why he was there, Teja, clearly very nervous, replied that it was probably because of the dancer who had stayed behind in Paris. “About the warning, he said nothing, of course.” Told to disclose everything he knew about Nureyev, he began talking with considerable confusion about how they had become friends. And then he was asked if he wanted to say anything about the letter.

  It was obvious that Kremke had expected this question, and he became extremely agitated, immediately admitting having written the letter and asking how he could put things right. He agreed that he had been in the wrong, and said that if he could help in any way, he would. Kremke kept saying that he was ready to make amends. He agreed to write a report concerning his relationship with the dancer, and to write another letter trying to convince the dancer that he had acted wrongly, and trying to influence him to return.

  That night Teja was more terrified than he had ever been in his life. He was only eighteen, and felt completely on his own. He couldn’t even call his mother, as the agent had ordered him “in sharp tones” not to talk to anyone about their conversation. “Kremke assured me that he would stay silent.” The Stasi’s aim was to frighten the boy, pointing out how he had made himself a focus for Western secret services, and warning that if he were rash enough to attempt to caution the traitor again, he would be found out and made to bear the consequences. (Threats included being sent to work in a factory and forbidden to continue his dance studies.) Panicking about any evidence that might incriminate him further, Teja tore several pages out of his diary dated from July 20 to 24, destroying a record of Rudolf’s calls, and took a box of films, photographs, and personal papers to leave in the safekeeping of his student girlfriend. And then he sat down to write.

  In a three-page statement mixing truth with fiction, Teja describes how his acquaintance with the Kirov star had brought him special perks—“I was often able to go to the theater with a real ticket instead of just a pass for the upper circle”—and says that he felt sorry for Rudolf, who had no friends apart from the Pushkins, Tamara, and himself. They often fought, and he had to put up with a lot of abusive behavior, but when the dancer made it clear through “various little overtures” that he wanted to take the relationship a stage further, Teja decided to bring it to an end. “Then, eventually, he asked me to make peace and also apologized for his behavior, saying that he would never again approach me in an abnormal way.” Fearing that their Berlin telephone may have been tapped, Teja decided to confess that Rudolf had asked him to join him in Paris but insists that at the time he had thought it best to “forget about everything” and sever all contact.

  Quite often at Mrs. Pushkin’s house we talked of him coming back to his senses. But as Mrs. Pushkin was unable to provide any news, I got scared that something might happen to the great talent Nureyev, and with my letter I tried to get in touch with him again.… I wanted to remind him about me and tell him about everything I had heard. That way I hoped to start a correspondence between the two of us.… Had I written a letter telling about myself, how and where I was, he would never have answered it.… I wanted to make him think about the situation he was in … [but I] fully recognize that I had committed an offense as well as a breach of trust. Knowing Rudolf, I regarded this to be the only possible way to make him eventually reconsider everything. With this I have written the entire truth.…

  [signed] Teja Kremke,

  Leningrad, Dec. 13, 1961

  Also that evening, Teja wrote the letter to Rudolf according to Stasi directions, and the following day, exactly on time, returned to the hotel. Appearing far more relaxed this time, he admitted that he had been corresponding with a girl in Germany (which the Stasi already knew.)* The agent appeared satisfied with the new letter, “written in a very persuasive tone,” but made a note in his report that it was imperative to continue their investigation of the student: “Find out about his connections in West Berlin; whether he is involved in any enemy activities; whether he can be used as an informer.”

  Two days later, on December 15, Xenia wrote her own letter to Rudolf. Like Teja’s it contains reassurances of his friends’ continuing devotion, nostalgic descriptions of snow-draped Leningrad, “so beautiful that it is hard to describe this winter landscape in words,” as well as theater gossip and references to their beloved Pushkin (whom she disguises as “The Elder”). But if it was also written to order—and with the approach of Rudolf’s first Christmas and New Year away from home, the KGB knew that the dancer would be more than usually receptive to attempts to lure him back—Xenia nevertheless used the opportunity to unleash an extraordinary outpouring of emotion, bludgeoning Rudolf with the extent of “worrying and suffering” she had endured since last hearing from him in September.

  I’ve been waiting all this time … you could have just spat on a piece of paper and sent it to me in an envelope. But … zero attention. Well, God bless you. I just so badly wanted to get a few letters from you, but there was always something preventing you from writing letters. I don’t know how to be angry with you, but I believe there will come a time when you will write to me. Oh! If you could know how I worry about you. I got so used to taking care of you.… You can’t imagine what I felt when I heard that you are alive and well.… Now I can despise the dirty little souls [the KGB] with reason. I hate your Kotochko [Sergeyev], even though we used to be friends with him.…

  I’ve heard about your success and, of course, I’ve read about it. I will wait for news from you impatiently. Pull yourself together—write to me.

  I think about you all the time. Kissing you. Hugs, Your X.J.

  Rosa also wrote to Rudolf on December 15, wishing him a happy New Year and telling him how much he meant to the family. “You can’t imagine what a celebration we have when we find out something about you. That you’re alive, healthy, and dancing well.” Knowing how much Rudolf worshipped the Bolshoi’s Galina Ulanova—“I cannot talk about her like the others. I cannot describe her. When I say her name I see her dance”—she tells him about a recent conversation she had with the ballerina. Charmingly simple and forthcoming, Ulanova said how sorry she was that things happened the way they did for Rudolf, and asked Rosa to call her if she heard any news. But among the assurances of sympathy and understanding are asides deliberately put there to unsettle him, like the emphasis on the strain he is inflicting on their “poor Mama,” who is planning to leave Ufa and join Rosa in Leningrad until her son comes home. They are all so worried about his life and future, and are ju
st waiting and dreaming about his return. They miss his performances—“adoring you and being proud of your success”—but feel sure they will see him again soon. “Come, Rudinka! Everything will be fixed somehow.… So come. Make us happy.”

  Several weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, knowing that his mother and sister would be together at Ordinarnaya Street, Rudolf telephoned them. Describing the company’s two-month tour across Europe and his recent schedule in London, Paris, and Copenhagen, he tried to get across the extent to which he was able to enrich his dance knowledge, assimilating new influences while preserving and adapting his Russian schooling. But instead of being impressed, they were deeply concerned, immediately writing a joint letter warning him repeatedly not to overwork. “Or as Mother says, it won’t be long before you end up on a garbage heap. Colorful? Yes, Mother knows. Listen to her.” Rudolf had told them that his circumstances in the West were not bad, that he was able to find elements in other methods of dance that he could accept, but just as Rosa had listened intently to her neighbor Alla Sizova’s descriptions of the Kirov’s recent American tour, trying and failing to picture the world now surrounding Rudolf, she “heard but didn’t understand” what her brother was trying to say.