Nureyev : The Life (9780307807342)
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5 • SIX STEPS EXACTLY
Reports on RN’s conduct at the Kirov were located in the Archive of the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Musical Art. All accounts leading up to and including the defection came from the dancer’s KGB file currently held in Moscow’s Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Leningrad’s Regional Committee of the CPSU. Further accounts of the defection were drawn from depositions made in preparation for RN’s trial on April 2, 1962, and currently held in the Archive of Federal Security Service Headquarters in the St. Petersburg region, which also houses all other material relating to the trial.
1. “dressed but not dressed”: Pierre Lacotte.
2. “Without saying hello”: RN/EK.
3. “He gave me chance”: Ibid.
4. “coup de tonnerre”: Figaro Littéraire, May 27, 1961.
5. “comme un figurant”: Pierre Lacotte.
6. “like a perpetual party”: Auto.
7. “façon féline”: Olivier Merlin, Le Monde, May 24, 1961.
8. “Maybe his legs”: MB/JA.
9. “C’était déjà”: Merlin, Le Monde.
10. “He is taller”: René Sirvin, “Noureev choisit la liberté a Paris,” Le roman vrai de la Vème République: La déchirure, 1961–1962, par Gilbert Guilleminault.
11. “the soaring angel”: Bronislava Nijinska, Early Memories.
12. “He opened the eyes”: Elle (U.S. ed.), March 1993.
13. “In the back of the car”: Auto.
14. “very spectacular”: Herbert Grunwald.
15. “a little shocked”: René Sirvin.
16. “l’époque Nijinski”: Sirvin, Le roman vrai.
17. “We even went to”: Sasha Shavrov.
18. “that he was suppressed”: source withheld.
19. “One day he came”: RN/EK.
20. “blond, like Marilyn”: Clara Saint.
21. “That’s the first time”: Alla Osipenko, quoted in 3 Yrs.
22. “I went to Mary”: Cl B’s N.
23. “Finally he answered”: Tamara Zakrzhevskaya, quoted in 3 Yrs.
24. “They devised plan”: RN/EK.
25. “Whisked away”: ibid.
26. “all anti-intellectual”: Valery Panov, To Dance.
27. “joined with those”: Le Monde, June 16, 1961.
28. “Vitaly Dmitrievich”: Alla Osipenko, quoted in 3 Yrs.
29. “He understood”: Igor Stupnikov.
30. “Ask your mother”: and subsequent Osipenko quotations, 3 Yrs.
31. “In the bus they gather”: RN/EK.
32. “jeune, beau et blond”: René Sirvin.
33. “Khrushchev wants to see you”: FOY-RN.
34. “Corps de ballets have place”: RN/EK.
35. “go white like enamel”: Pierre Lacotte.
36. “Bad news”: and subsequent Panov quotations, To Dance.
37. “No foreign travel”: Auto.
38. “We all understood”: Olga Moiseyeva.
39. “Go and get me … I say all right … Don’t touch me”: RN/EK.
40. “During our whole”: Auto.
41. “So I decide”: FOY-RN.
42. “six steps … No jumping”: Ibid.
43. “They were pushing … Ah non!”: Clara Saint.
44. “He literally fell down!”: Janine Ringuet.
45. “He took a paper knife”: Lacotte, Paris-Match, January 21, 1993.
46. “He was banging his head”: DS.
47. “Osipenko said—she swore”: RN/EK.
48. “screaming”: FOY-RN.
49. “The room, they told me”: Auto.
50. “For me this was already”: Cl B’s N.
51. “The systematic wearing down”: To Neil Amdur, NYT, July 14, 1969.
52. “I was saving my life … If I’d gone back”: Eg B.
53. “this would be utter … to learn, to see”: Auto.
54. “No, we are not engaged”: Daily Mail, June 17, 1961.
55. “It didn’t appear”: France-Soir, June 17, 1961.
56. “could be in charge”: Panov, To Dance.
57. “I had already danced”: RN/EK.
58. “I had traveled a lot”: Marie Claire, October 1961.
59. “My friends were laughing”: Ibid.
60. “dance to”: Daily Express, June 17, 1961.
61. “super-vedette”: L’Aurore, June 20, 1961.
62. “I accept only three”: FOY-RN.
63. “I didn’t know the source”: RN/EK.
64. “special action”: and subsequent quotations Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive.
65. “This meant that I lived … hardly changed … exactly the way”: Auto.
66. “Pushkin’s sign of the cross”: Rosella Hightower.
67. “I am far more worried”: To Thevenon, Paris-Jour, June 23, 1961.
68. “each of these names”: Tamara Zakrzhevskaya, quoted in 3 Yrs.
69. “Rudik’s never understood … But I was no longer … Tamara, dear”: Ibid.
70. “Mahmoudka”: Ibid.
71. “Liubka, the Voice”: “Rudolf Nureyev: The Sixties and After,” unpublished memoir by Liuba Myasnikova.
72. “Mikhail Gorbachev’s advance”: The New Yorker, January 18, 1993.
73. “Molodetz”: Ute Mitreuter.
74. “They didn’t throw him out”: Berdin Pavel.
75. “crazy, crazy, crazy”: Pierre Lacotte.
76. “In Russia we are just not”: To Franz Spelman, Show Business Illustrated, October 31, 1961.
77. “In Leningrad it was very”: To Thevenon, Paris-Jour. June 21, 1961.
78. “which took her by surprise”: L’Aurore, June 24 and 25, 1961.
79. “Noureiev [sic] a pleuré”: France-Soir, June 20, 1961.
80. “not the most finished”: NYT, June 24, 1961.
81. “He had conceived”: Ballet Review 5, no. 2 (1975–76).
82. “The letter from Pushkin”: Auto.
83. “the real Maryinsky Blue Bird”: ibid.
84. “The duet is a tender”: Neva, no. 10, 1960, reprinted in 3 Yrs.
85. “À Moscou! Traître!”: France-Soir, July 2, 1961.
86. “softly moving … to show a bird”: Auto.
87. “slipshod and improvised”: Nina Alovert, Smena, June 9, 1960.
88. “Nureyev choosing freedom”: from a poem by an anonymous Russian fan, RNA.
6 • MAKING LUCK
The account of Teja Kremke’s interrogation by the Stasi is drawn from the deposition made available to the author by his daughter Jurico Siegmann. It was translated for this book by Uli Minoggio, who also translated interviews conducted in German.
1. “Even in winter”: Clara Saint.
2. “He wasn’t just using … Rudolf was still testing”: Verdy, DD.
3. “its people, its freedom”: To Jean Fayard, Le Figaro Littéraire, July 15, 1961.
4. “He had to choose.… Wait until”: Ute Kremke.
5. “Holden Caulfield vocabulary”: Evidence, 1944–1994/Richard Avedon, with essays by Jane Livingston and Adam Gopnik (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, in association with Random House, 1994).
6. “occasions are performances”: Ibid.
7. “the nervous edge”: Avedon, Observations.
8. “terrible et”: Cocteau, quoted in ibid.
9. “Everything was a drama”: Ghislaine Thesmar.
10. “He was very spoiled”: Jacqueline de Ribes.
11. “It was a combination”: Douce François.
12. “Babylon of beauty”: Jacques Mousseau, Le Siècle de Paul-Louis Weiller, 1893–1993.
13. “He wasn’t friendly”: Jacqueline de Ribes.
14. “like a prisoner”: Douce François.
15. “outside civilization … In July”: Ute Kremke.
16. “thinking, remembering … When we came”: Tamara Zakrzhevskaya, quoted in 3 Yrs.
17. “He blamed Ser
geyev”: Dimitri Filatov.
18. “He knew Rudik would understand”: Nicolai Kovmir.
19. “If you miss him so much”: Razida Evgrafova.
20. “I mean, what do they … Oh your country”: FOY-RN.
21. “Sometimes you have to remind”: Nureyev, Thames TV, 1981, NC@NYDL.
22. “Before I could catch my breath … Please, I have proposal”: MT.
23. “He kept talking”: Ibid.
24. “the most audacious”: Edwin Denby, “A Letter on NYC’s Ballet,” Dance Writings.
25. “Nothing impresses him”: Show Business Illustrated, October 31, 1961.
26. “superindividualistic I”: Faubion Bowers, The New Scriabin: Enigma and Answers.
27. “a real Russkie malchik”: MT.
28. “Whatever it takes, he will go”: Sally Ann Kriegsman, Ballet Review, Winter 1993.
29. “utterly forsaken”: MT.
30. “very demanding”: Glen Tetley.
31. “I simply couldn’t handle it”: EB.
32. “But of course”: Ibid.
33. “Bruhn is cold … Yes, he’s so cold”: EK (and cf. JP’s N: “Cool, yes—so cool that it burns”).
34. “a certain style”: EB.
35. “Of course, I could see”: EBtrs.
36. “But we’re not in America”: Ibid.
37. “Why do the Danish people”: EB.
38. “the obvious lascivious”: My Theatre Life.
39. “a dirty dancer”: DS.
40. “different lives … It was certainly not”: D&D, June 1962.
41. “Seeing Rudik move”: EB.
42. “I am so sorry”: EBtrs.
43. “At beginning I came”: RN/EK.
44. “rather sinister Mephistophelian”: Glen Tetley, quoted in EB.
45. “We saw this wild-eyed”: Glen Tetley.
46. “The men were becoming”: MT.
47. “as a freak”: Show Business Illustrated, October 31, 1961.
48. “It must have been horrible”: MT.
49. “You must svoooosch … You are hugging”: Gilbert Vernon.
50. “What [Volkova] had”: RN/NG.
51. “That’s wrong”: EBtrs.
52. “quite dull. Very dry”: RN/NG.
53. “didn’t have any desire … I did every day”: Ibid.
54. “I want so much to go beyond”: EBtrs.
55. “When Erik dances”: RN/NG.
56. “to the lasting shame”: Ballet Today, December 1961.
57. “just sat up” and subsequent quotations: MG.
58. “I thought, well”: F&N.
7 • JAZZ, LONDON
1. “I looked too scruffy”: RN/EK.
2. “stonily unmoved … Her flashing smile”: D&D, June 1961.
3. “I became aware”: Nureyev, Thames TV, 1981, NC@NYDL.
4. “hunting and shooting”: NG diaries.
5. “only ever be”: MG.
6. “seemed to belong”: David Astor, quoted in Prowling the Pavements.
7. “a Renaissance patron … everybody’s spiritual … the last great”: Anthony Sampson, Observer Review, December 9, 2001.
8. “But I’m not a journalist”: MG.
9. “Tell me about Freud”: To Joseph Houseal, Ballet Review, Spring 1994.
10. “nine-tenths”: MF Auto.
11. “Jazz, London”: RN to Viktor Rona, Hungarian Dance Archives, Budapest.
12. “How good is Brian Shaw”: Colette Clark.
13. “just beginning”: Stewart Grimshaw.
14. “dancers, choreographers”: DT, November 1961.
15. “[Rudik] was staying with me … absolutely pale”: EBtrs.
16. “All Rudi did was eye me … Sex is sex”: SAtrs.
17. “We didn’t wait for him”: DS.
18. “The appearance of ease”: August Bournonville, August Bournonville.
19. “The art of dancing”: NG unpublished notes.
20. “That was the only time”: SAtrs.
21. “In the very beginning”: EBtrs.
22. “These two people”: EB.
23. “He combined the teacher”: Ray Barra.
24. “It could be a car”: Tamara Zakrzhevskaya.
25. “In the theaters”: Stasi deposition.
26. “a totally reciprocal”: Glen Tetley.
27. “It was like speaking”: EB.
28. “That’s how we began”: ibid.
29. “When you listen to Bach”: Dance Magazine, May 1990.
30. “something total”: EBtrs.
31. “Not ‘I did it!’ ”: RN/EK.
32. “Romantic kind of”: To Cl B, Monitor: Rudolf Nureyev, BBC-TV, 1962, NC@NYDL.
33. “a whip-like quality”: Ballet Today, December 1961.
34. “n’importe quoi”: Ghislaine Thesmar.
35. “darting round”: Cecil Beaton, Self Portrait with Friends.
36. “bounding passionately”: Gosling draft (deleted by RN).
37. “Reeking of revolution”: Bowers, The New Scriabin.
38. “very much akin to sex”: Dance Magazine, May 1990.
39. “enormous sexual impulse … a kind of animalism”: DD.
40. “so charged with things”: DD.
41. “nervous, intense”: MF Auto.
42. “palpitating with a lust”: John Taras, Nureyev conference, St. Petersburg, March 13–15, 1998.
43. “mixture of sobs”: Cl B’s N.
44. “rebellious, charismatic”: Taras, Nureyev conference.
45. “The audience was for a moment”: Beaton, Self Portrait with Friends.
46. “not so much what he danced”: F&N.
47. “All I thought was”: To Houseal, Ballet Review, Summer 1994.
48. “terrifying mob”: DT, December 1961.
49. “hyena baying”: Ibid.
50. “Where does that”: EBtrs.
51. “a nostalgic shadow”: D&D, December 1961.
52. worst performance ever: MF Auto.
53. “Is story better not”: Ibid.
54. “something almost perfect”: Beaton, Self Portrait with Friends.
55. “in fits & starts”: Letter to Violette Verdy.
56. “More About the Man”: Sunday Times (London), November 12, 1961.
57. “an absolutely back number”: FOY-MF.
58. “one-track tastes”: Tito Arias letter, MF Auto.
59. “as if each existed”: Elizabeth Kaye, Esquire.
60. “But once the Dane”: Rosella Hightower.
8 • A CELESTIAL ACCIDENT
1. “I cannot talk about her”: Life, November 27, 1964.
2. “Xenia transferred all her desires”: source withheld.
3. “new revelation”: Zizi Jeanmaire, quoted in DS.
4. “the kind of collective”: January 25, 1962.
5. “peculiar, pinch-hit”: Ibid.
6. “Everybody was only”: Quoted in DS.
7. “It was strictly for the experiment”: EB, quoted in D&D, June 1962.
8. “If you can arrange it”: SAtrs.
9. “Opera singers partnered”: Edward Villella, Prodigal Son.
10. “for some heavy duty”: Barbara Horgan.
11. “I said, ‘Ah, Nureyev’ ”: Quoted in DD.
12. “story of the body”: To Walter Terry, Theatre Arts, July 1962.
13. “reach, get it”: Suki Schorer, On Balanchine Technique.
14. “went gaga over”: To Terry, Theatre Arts, July 1962.
15. “I love the Americans”: Eg B.
16. “Everything tends to neglect”: Show Business Illustrated, October 31, 1961.
17. “self out of the picture”: Arlene Croce s.v. “Balanchine,” International Encyclopedia of Dance.
18. “I was still stuck”: EB, Beyond Technique.
19. “Why relax?”: Schorer, On Balanchine Technique.
20. “Braque, Pushkin”: Bernard Taper, Balanchine.
21. “I loved Pique Dame”: I nb B.
23. “each partaking of virtues”: Croce, s.v. “Balanchine,” International Encyclopedia of Dance.
24. “put the ‘Russe’ legend”: Ibid.
25. “You must not!”: To Terry, Theatre Arts, July 1962.
26. “We were too busy”: Maria Tallchief.
27. “both an expression”: DS.
28. “frightful yellow”: Richard Buckle, Sunday Times (London), November 5, 1961.
29. “Everyone was saying”: Colette Clark.
30. “ruffled up”: Vera Krasovskaya, Nijinsky.
31. “Ordinarily he would never”: MT.
32. “movement where your”: EB, Beyond Technique.
33. “This was not quite Danish”: A Bl, Observer of the Dance.
34. “the Tate to the Royal”: Jane Pritchard, s.v. “Ballet Rambert,” International Dictionary of Ballet.
35. “He stood in my dressing room … I am like dying”: MF Auto.
36. “If he was on the stage”: FOY-MF.
37. “This is a classical ballet”: February 18, 1962.
38. “a fifty-fifty compromise”: unmarked clipping, February 21, 1962.
39. “He is completely engaged”: Sunday Times, February 18, 1962.
40. “I study photographs”: Saturday Review, November 11, 1978.
41. “one of the earliest”: Cl B’s N.
42. “I remember corps de ballet crying”: Ibid.
43. “Never had I seen each step”: MF Auto.
44. “Left arm is too back”: Ibid.
45. “It did work and suddenly”: Cl B’s N.
46. “the Albrecht”: EB, Beyond Technique.
47. “In a more mature state”: Ibid.
48. “that kind of hypnotic”: Glen Tetley, quoted in DS.
49. “I suddenly see”: FOY-MF.
50. “In the West they use”: Cl B’s N.
51. “the stilted Maryinsky style”: D&D, June 1961.
52. “a lonely little man … the supposed once upon”: NdV, Step by Step.
53. “a revolution in dance”: unedited Magic of Dance footage, NC@NYDL.
54. “king of ballets”: Eg B.
55. “I simply draw from the original”: EB, Beyond Technique.
56. “I came to her, and I said”: Cl B’s N.
57. “Just you try”: MF Auto.
58. “I just really emptied myself totally”: RN/EK.
59. “riotous”: MG.
60. “beautiful pansy-shaped”: Patrick White in Michael Peppiatt’s Francis Bacon.
61. “My dear, you simply must”: NG, Thicker than Water (London: Longmans, 1938).