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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.8028092
EAN: 9780375405136
ISBN: 0375405135
Label: Pantheon
Manufacturer: Pantheon
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 782
Publication Date: October 02, 2007
Publisher: Pantheon
Release Date: October 02, 2007
Sales Rank: 320262
Studio: Pantheon
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Product Description:
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, “crashing the gates” of modern dance, iconoclastically updating the most hallowed classics, and making dance history by partnering England’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 Béjart, Roland Petit--his main motive, he claimed, for having left the Kirov. But Nureyev also made it his mission to stage Russia’s full-length masterpieces in the West. His highly personal productions of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Romeo and Juliet, and La Bayadère are the mainstays of the Paris Opéra Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to young protégés 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 Nureyev’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 Opéra 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 Nureyev’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.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Nureyev: The Life
This is a page turner of a book- not only for the unusual life of Nureyev but also for a look into the world of dance. As great a dancer as he was, even he struggled repeatedly to find his place in the world. As he aged, he needed to change his repertoire, and, eventually, his career. Julie Kavanagh is a dancer who understands the politics of dance and builds in enough detail to make us feel the frustrations and struggles of Nureyev as he tries to find a company which fits ... Read More
Rating:  -
Rudolf Nureyev, flamboyant dancer with the Kirov Ballet of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), began life on a train to the Eastern Russian front. He was the son of Tatar parents from a remote part of the Soviet Union. His father was a soldier who was rarely home. The family was extremely poor and often hungry, but his mother managed to sneak them into a performance of a ballet when Rudolf was five. He was determined from that time on to learn to dance and perform on the stage. He had the talent, determination ... Read More
Rating: -
I have been buying books my entire adult life and off Amazon since its inception, however never have I before felt compelled to review until now, which speaks to the brilliance of Julie Kavanagh's book. I try to read outside categories I know, and this one was no exception, no absolutely nothing about ballet or dance. But this book made me feel and appreciate both, as well as the epic life of Nureyev. Passionately told and incredible well researched, this is a biography worthy of its subject.
Rating: -
Kavanagh's "Nureyev" is another first-rate dance biography, fully matching her marvelous account of Frederick Ashton. Nureyev was more a great star than a great dancer, yet his impact on male ballet dancers worldwide was transformative. Before Rudi, they were mostly earthbound dullards, either crudely straight or mincingly effeminate; after Rudi, men in ballet became nearly as turned out, pulled up, and extended as ballerinas, with a protean animalism that enabled them to live gay yet seem to love their ... Read More
Rating: -
He was born on a train as his mother and sisters journeyed to be with his soldier father. Of this unusual entrance into the world, Nureyev was to say "...it was the most romantic event of his life, symbolic of his future statelessness and nomadic existence."
His was a life lived from place to place from humble beginnings in a Russian village to the most luxurious surroundings the world could offer. He was an icon, libidinous, both men and women were drawn to him. The great ... Read More
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