We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,819,689.65 | Books Available: 705,934 | Members Online: 273

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Nureyev: The Life

Nureyev The Life
Author: Julie Kavanagh

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-peasan... more »t 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 Bejart, 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 Bayadere are the mainstays of the Paris Opera Ballet repertory to this day. An inspirational director and teacher, Nureyev was a Diaghilev-like mentor to young proteges 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 Opera 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.

ISBN-13: 9780375704727
ISBN-10: 0375704728
Publication Date: 11/11/2008
Pages: 848
Edition: Reprint
Rating:

Currently 2/5 Stars.

2 stars, based on 1 rating

Publisher: Vintage/Knopf/Doubleday Publishing Group
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 3
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Arts & Photography >> Performing Arts >> Dance >> Ballet
Arts & Photography >> Performing Arts >> Dance >> Classical
Arts & Photography >> Performing Arts >> Dance >> General
Biographies & Memoirs >> Arts & Literature >> Dancers
Biographies & Memoirs >> Arts & Literature >> Entertainers
LGBTQ+ Books >> Biographies & Memoirs >> Gay

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Nureyev: The Life

Loading...