Nureyev : The Life (9780307807342)

by Kavanagh, Julie

  It was hard for Rudolf when, a month or so later, Wallace’s parents traveled to Europe. “I could see how painful it was for him—the fact that my family was free to fly around the world to visit me and his wasn’t. I wondered at the time if it was a good idea for my parents to come over for that very reason.” The Pottses, who were themselves “once removed from farmworkers,” like Hamet and Farida, had also wanted their son to have the college education denied to them, and had been dismayed by his decision to follow a completely different course of his own. “I cannot say that I approve of what you are doing, neither can I say that I condemn it,” wrote his father in his reply to Wallace’s letter. Both were concerned that it was the glamour of Rudolf’s existence that had attracted Wallace, but were equally at pains to reassure him that they loved him “no matter what.” Their tolerance toward their son’s homosexuality—“Believe me, dear, we’re not as naive as you probably think”—was unusual enough for Middle America, and would have been unimaginable to Farida. But Rudolf was not asking for his mother’s acceptance of his relationship with Wallace: He only wanted to be able to see her again. “My life is coming to its end; not everybody lives long,” she had written in the September letter, a remark that had only served to heighten Rudolf’s sense of loss. One Saturday after rehearsals he asked Glen Tetley to have lunch with him at Fife Road, where he talked at length about his desperate loneliness. “It was coming deeply out of his Russian soul. The house was a huge echoing half-empty place made to be lived in by many people, and he clearly felt very isolated. There had been many times, he said, when he had felt close to suicide.”

  Rudolf had first made contact with Tetley after seeing a Ballet Rambert performance of his Pierrot Lunaire, a work whose protagonist—“an outsider … robbed of his innocence”—he acutely identified with at the time. It was Tetley’s first venture as a choreographer, a ballet he had created on himself, and the one about which he felt most protective. “I was intrigued by the idea of working with Rudolf, but felt it would not be Pierrot Lunaire but Rudolf Nureyev. So I said no. He was totally persistent and every time we met would say, ‘Give me a chance. I will do anything.’ He saw Ziggurat and all the ballets I did, but his heart was set on Pierrot.”

  In November 1970, when Tetley was commissioned to create his first work for the Royal Ballet, he excluded Rudolf from the cast, still believing that he was “too formed—not only as a principal artist but as a star.” An uncompromising work to a Stockhausen score, Field Figures used animal imagery and positions of display and submission to explore its theme of territorial instinct. Its style derived from Martha Graham, and as a Graham dancer as well as disciple, Tetley was much closer than either van Dantzig or Béjart to what Rudolf regarded as “the source,” and the opportunity to work with him would be, in Nigel Gosling’s words, his “baptism of fire” in modern dance. After a year of Rudolf’s relentless “pleading” to be allowed to appear in Field Figures, Tetley finally relented, pairing him with Monica Mason. But whereas his Royal Ballet colleagues had spent three months creating the ballet with Tetley—“hours and hours just doing exercises and classes with him”—Rudolf had to do a crash course in Graham technique. The method of contraction and release combined with a spiritual element, “the centering of concentration and personality on one’s highest instincts,” made even the simplest classroom exercises very different from anything Rudolf was used to. “The movement had to be studied from the very beginning, like going back to school,” he said, and in Tetley’s view, he immediately proved himself a star pupil. “I have to say that he learned the choreography impeccably, just soaked up the movement and got right down to the basics of it. The floorwork and use of contraction and isolation of the body to the torso … he caught all of that. He was truly brilliant.”

  Wanting once again to show that he had not abandoned his classical roots, Rudolf made his next priority the staging of Petipa’s Raymonda, the first three-act Russian classic he had mounted in the West from memory. This time, instead of pursuing the almost abstract vein of his two earlier versions, he decided to go in the opposite direction and exploit what Alexander Bland called “the other face of Romanticism, the warm-blooded sex-and-violence exoticism celebrated by men like Sir Walter Scott or Delacroix.” With its far-fetched plot, jousting warriors, and surging crowd scenes, the ballet, and in particular its second act, is much like a Hollywood blockbuster (Danilova, who staged it with Balanchine for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, described it as “a little bit B picture”). But because of its wonderfully danceable Glazunov score and wealth of Petipa solos and ensembles, Rudolf was determined to make it work, now believing that a ravishingly extravagant production could entice a modern audience into accepting the “inordinate silliness” of the story. Zurich’s Municipal Theater, which had commissioned Raymonda, was wealthier than most ballet companies and was allowing Rudolf to use Nico Georgiadis, the designer who had been too expensive for Spoleto, and who knew better than anyone else how to portray real opulence onstage.

  Focusing on a young girl awaiting the return of her fiancé from the Crusades, Raymonda is the ballerina’s ballet, requiring a performer of formidable technique and strength. This was the reason Rudolf had brought in the Stuttgart Ballet’s Marcia Haydée, renowned as “a trojan worker” and also as one of the world’s great dance actresses. She and Rudolf had already appeared together in Giselle and Swan Lake with the Stuttgart Ballet at the end of 1968, even though director John Cranko had been ambivalent about having Rudolf as a guest. “He realized his value but was appalled at times by his behavior,” says Peter Wright, who was ballet master at the time. “It was Marcia who liked dancing with Rudolf and got him invited back. She loved stars and always longed to be pushed to the limit.” Which is exactly what Rudolf did in Zurich, testing the ballerina’s stamina by making her repeat sequences “again and again and again.” His ideal in the role was Dudinskaya, whose phrasing and accenting of the choreography he never tired of describing. “Without her, Raymonda is not possible. She’s the only one who made [it] sparkle. The way she made steps important … the way she hold a pose, the intensity. It’s what I took from her. Never to crawl into positions but to get there directly and completely.” And in Wallace’s 16-mm footage we see Haydée herself really shine as, Aurora-like, she picks up roses and hops and paws the floor on pointe, her youthful lightness contrasted with a mellow, lusciously supple and fluent Russian quality.

  As for Rudolf, although appropriating music from other places in the score to acquire extra solos—“three more than Petipa and Glazunov planned for”—he had not made any significant changes. Even more surprising is the fact that he had given another male dancer the more sexually dynamic role. As Jean de Brienne, Rudolf is deliberately insipid at first, overworshipful toward his betrothed, who seems always to be pulling away from him. When Jean goes to war, an unexpected visitor arrives, the Saracen knight Abderakhman, who has heard of Raymonda’s beauty and come to woo her. When she falls asleep that night it is he who takes Jean’s place in her dreams—an alteration of the ballet’s original dream sequence by Rudolf, who wanted a more contemporary Raymonda, a young girl with 1970s sexual awareness and fantasies. Renowned for her portrayal of women of passion—Cranko’s Juliet, Tatiana, Katherine, and Carmen—Haydée is superb at conveying the heroine’s mounting excitement as she watches the Saracen’s weird, primitive movements culminating in a wild Polovtsian dance. When he attempts to kidnap her, in contrast to Fonteyn’s Chloe, who exuded real terror as she was carried high above her abductor’s head, Haydée’s Raymonda seems to relish the thrill of it all. At the crucial moment Jean arrives and slays Abderakhman in a hand-to-hand duel, standing victoriously astride him in thigh and bicep-baring battle dress like Charlton Heston’s Ben Hur. Almost swooning at the change in her mild-mannered lover, Raymonda runs into his arms. Unlike Siegfried, forced to chose between Odette and Odile, the sacred and the profane, she has found erotic fulfillment with the person she loves—an experience
Rudolf had only lately discovered for himself.

  Raymonda’s third act, a Hungarian-flavored spectacle in honor of the couple’s wedding celebrations, is often staged in isolation as the uplifting finale to a mixed bill—as Rudolf’s own version had been since entering the repertory of the Royal Ballet Touring Company in 1966. Recently, though, the board of directors had conceded that there was “something to be said” for commissioning the whole ballet, particularly as Margot wanted a new work for the next New York tour, and had proposed Rudolf’s full-length production. At the board’s suggestion Michael Somes and Peter Wright traveled to Zurich to see it, and met Rudolf after the performance at the famous Kronenhalle restaurant. Dining on his favorite combination of vodka, caviar, and blinis and surrounded by genuine Matisses, Picassos, and Braques, Rudolf was in good humor—until, that is, the two Royal Ballet delegates confronted him with the fact that they had not liked his ballet. “There was a huge row, almost a physical fight between Somes and Rudolf,” recalls Wright. And at the meeting of the Ballet Subcommittee on February 15, 1972, the two remained implacable in delivering their report:

  It had been hoped that they might find it suitable for inclusion at some later date into the Royal Ballet’s repertory but, unfortunately, having seen the ballet, both Mr. Wright and Mr. Somes decided that it was not suitable. In spite of some fulsome Press praise for this production, they had found that it was no better than Nureyev’s previous two attempts to make sense of the outdated story of the ballet. The Committee agreed with the opinion of Mr. Wright and Mr. Somes that Raymonda should not be brought into the Royal Ballet repertory.

  Clearly Rudolf’s suspicions of a Royal Ballet conspiracy “to keep [him] out of the theater” were not entirely unfounded, and made him more determined than ever to seek opportunities elsewhere. It was his prerogative, he felt, to “go and choose brain,” and with Raymonda perhaps reminding him of his 1963 sojourn in Spoleto, he decided to get in touch with Paul Taylor, whose ballet Aureole had so excited him there. He had told Taylor at the time how much he longed to appear in his work, but the choreographer had not believed him. “Well, it’s a remarkable thing for somebody like him to want to do. So I didn’t think too much about it. And then every time I’d see him he’d bring it up again.… I didn’t take the initiative.” But in fact Taylor had forgotten that he was the first to make an approach, writing to Rudolf on July 22, 1964, exactly a year after their first encounter.

  Dear Nureyev,

  Since I met you in Spoleto, I have been thinking of you and how much I would like to create a piece for you. Suddenly, and fortunately, it seems possible—if you are interested.…

  He had been offered the New York State Theater (the new home of the New York City Ballet) for two weeks in February 1965, but the deal fell through, and after that it was Rudolf who went out of his way to stay in contact. “So, we became friends, but he said, ‘You are not serious and you won’t be able to learn my way of dancing.’ ” Finally, however, almost a decade later, Taylor “did realize that this guy was really sincere about wanting to do it, and would go through the effort to get it right.” They worked together in March 1971 on a U.S. television project, an abbreviated version of Big Bertha, and three months later Rudolf joined the Paul Taylor troupe’s tour of Mexico. When he arrived at his hotel in Mexico City there was a notated version of Aureole waiting for him, inscribed, “For my crazy Russian geek, with much love, Paul.”

  Surprisingly for a choreographer whom Arlene Croce has described as “a major establishment figure with a style as individual as a thumbprint,” Taylor has no school or technique of his own but works directly with his dancers—“Everything happens in rehearsals.” With movements gravitating to the floor from the waist down and the upper body “ethereal, uplifted, open,” the choreography is much harder to master than it appears. “I knew it would be difficult, but not that difficult—not just psychologically but technically,” Rudolf admitted, driving himself so mercilessly that Taylor kept telling him to stop and rest. He could see Rudolf struggling and failing “to switch over; to drop ballet habits that were so ingrained,” and yet he admired the dancer’s fortitude, his willingness to take corrections, and the speed with which he picked up the steps. “The style no one could learn quickly.”

  For Rudolf, the experience had been chastening. “I hadn’t realized how far apart Paul and I are, how much I have to learn, the work I must put in to achieve his demands. You just can’t put other clothes on, you have to know in your bones what he is asking of you.” This was a very different guest artist from the one who had worked with Dutch National Ballet two years ago, his litany of demands—“Can you get me tea?… See if masseur is in.… Ask office to call London for me”—remembered to this day by Rudi van Dantzig. When he performed with Taylor, Rudolf could not have been more obliging. “He did not come as a temperamental star. He came as a dancer, an instrument.… In a close company like ours everyone pulls together, and he was no exception.”

  And yet a month later in London, working with the Royal Ballet on a new Glen Tetley piece, Rudolf relapsed again, “behaving appallingly,” according to Tetley, even toward his adored Lynn Seymour. The ballerina had put on a lot of weight, and when it came to trying out a difficult lift across his shoulder, Rudolf “just let her drop to the floor.” Named after its Luciano Berio score, Laborintus, a starkly modern piece about people walking into the inferno, featured five other Royal Ballet principals—and this, Tetley feels, was the root of the problem. “Because, if a new work was being created, Rudolf thought it should focus on him.” Noticing, when he began his solo, that two dancers were still performing their duet behind him, Rudolf had stormed out, refusing to allow “all that monkey business going on” to spoil his own entrance. Taking Rudolf aside, Tetley put an arm around him and begged him to be more trusting. “I told him, Rudy, I don’t want you to make an entrance, nineteenth-century style, for a solo variation.… I have a transition across your entrance, and it’s very exciting because you come out of darkness into light, instead of coming on with a battery of spotlights.”

  A reason for Rudolf’s insecurity was the fact that one of the two dancers was Margot’s new partner, twenty-six-year-old David Wall. They had danced their first Swan Lake in 1969 when, in Keith Money’s words, “a rapturous reception immediately cemented a long-lasting and harmonious pairing.” Not only that, but Wall had recently established a close rapport with Merle Park, sanctioned by Ashton, who had just created a new pas de deux for them. An exceptionally handsome young man with red hair, a virile build, and natural charm, Wall says that it was seeing Rudolf perform in London for the first time in 1961 that had changed his whole approach to his work. “Not so much technically—more his commitment, vitality, and understanding.” The two had become friends, Wall claiming to “really love the man,” and Wallace confirming, “David was probably the only Royal Ballet male dancer that Rudolf got along with well enough to have to dinner.” But despite Rudolf’s fondness for “Ginger” Wall and his ballerina wife, Alfreda Thorogood, he was not willing to invite direct comparison onstage with a new star, an exemplar of flawless Royal Ballet placing, who also happened to be nearly a decade his junior.*

  London was where Rudolf felt he met with his harshest criticism, and yet he still regarded it as home. Life with Wallace had evolved into “a kind of marriage,” providing the continuity and stability Rudolf craved, even though he would not allow himself to be confined by it. “I used to fly to Paris from London for sex,” he once boasted. “God, it was great. The English were too prudish and reserved, but in Paris …!” News that Rudolf was cruising the gay clubs on the rue Saint-Anne would filter back to Wallace, who was nevertheless determined to remain faithful. “I was actually very conservative in our relationship. I didn’t screw around at all.” Described by Nigel Gosling as “the least mercenary and calculating person,” Wallace was an unusual consort to a star, ungrudging about the fact that he had no regular allowance and was forced to ask Sandor Gorlins
ky for money, whether it be to pay a doctor’s bill or a train fare. Mostly to please Rudolf, he was making tremendous efforts to educate himself, learning Italian, improving his French, and reading a number of challenging texts. He had just discovered Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, which he found so stimulating that he could hardly put it down. They were traveling together by rail to Zurich when Rudolf, “thinking I was spending more time with the book than with him, suddenly grabbed it and threw it out the window.” Then, Wallace continues:

  We got in a real physical fight—a fistfight in the train. It just ended because we were both too exhausted to continue. Rudolf was very demanding and he wanted attention. I think he felt that he had so little time on earth—just some strange feeling he had about his mortality.… And when he was offstage he wanted attention.… If I happened to be doing something at that time, he expected me to stop what I was doing and be with him, whether it was eating dinner or watching TV.